A disappointing adaptation of John Grogan’s autobiographical novel, David Frankel’s Marley & Me features too little Marley and too much Me, in this case Owen Wilson, standing in for the author.
Not that Wilson is bad, but his life feels much too conventional as conveyed by the picture, and his & his family’s relationship with Marley isn’t nearly as developed as it should be.
Marley and Me is being billed as a comedy, but it isn’t quite that; it’s the story of John (Wilson) and Jennifer (Jennifer Aniston) Grogan, a newlywed couple who move from Michigan to Southern Florida to start a life.
They’re both journalists, and each get work at separate papers. Before having kids, they decide to get a dog, and that’s where Marley, an affectionate and uncontrollable yellow lab, comes in.
In the film’s best sequence, a dizzying but loving montage shows how their life continues with, and is often dictated by, Marley’s presence.
And then, well, life goes on. They have a boy, then another, finally a girl. Jennifer quits her job to take care of the kids. John gets a gig as a full-time columnist under the wings of editor Arnie Klein (Alan Arkin). Marley takes a back seat to the lives that develop around him.
If you’ve been following the number of years the movie has covered, you know what’s going to happen by the end. Most of the picture, while somewhat uneventful, is refreshingly realistic and avoids the pitfalls of this kind of studio fare. The ending wrecks all that with its big, over-the-top sentimentality.
It’s awful, cornball stuff that 50’s Disney wouldn’t touch, and makes one yearn for the ‘subtlety’ of Old Yeller.
Cast is effective, lead by Wilson at his most likable. Aniston does her best with a terribly underwritten character whose mood swings feel unprovoked and underdeveloped.
Kathleen Turner, who hasn’t appeared on screen in eight years following Sally Field’s Beautiful in 2000, has a brief and rather unfortunate cameo as a dog trainer who flunks Marley.
