Marley and Me Review
Marley and Me is one of those movies that cynics will call manipulative and trite, I found its emotions to be big and genuine, and while artistically it is flawed the heart does shine through.
Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson play married journalists, he tries to delay having a kid with her by getting a dog, the titular Marley.
The dog destroys everything he touches, but in a cute lovable way, and so they just try to make do.
Eventually the kids come, and the dog stays, and the couple grows older together. We follow them through their marriage, kids, and job troubles.
Really if you took this movie and did a plot synopsis it would seem like not a ton happens, and indeed that is the case. In a way it’s almost refreshing to see a movie that doesn’t feel it has to inject soap opera-ish moments into a simple story.
The main artistic drawback of Marley and Me is the sort of Hallmark card sheen laying over everything. The relationship between the couple is very sweet and caring, their problems are typical, and even when they fight you don’t feel like you are watching a real couple fighting. This is a movie couple fighting in what is very clearly a family movie, and that gets in the way of what could be more honest and real scenes of marital discord.
Just in general the whole movie feels soft and cuddly, like it doesn’t want to risk pushing you too far as a viewer in one way or another.
It succeeds (and obviously has found an audience, grossing over $100 million already domestically) because it has big emotions that do feel genuine. The love between the couple, their love for the dog, all that stuff totally is there.
And maybe it’s sappy, but something writers need to remember in an increasingly cynical age is there will always be an audience for a movie like this, that wears its heart on its sleeve, that isn’t afraid to be a little bit sappy.
This may sound like blasphemy, but an emotionally cold movie like Benjamin Button could learn something from Marley and Me.
If you have ever had a dog, you’ll probably be moved by this movie.
Exhibit A of “If you don’t think this is sad you have no soul”
Sometimes movies create situations so cute, so very obviously sad and relatable and adorable, it almost makes you feel as though something is wrong with you if you don’t feel anything. Marley and Me does this in spades towards the end. And you probably will feel something.
Pixar did something similar with the opening of Wall-E, giving us a cute robot who has been living all alone and finally has a chance to be with someone, how can you not relate to that? They make it so damn cute you’re almost forced to respond.
Scott Frank Wrote On This?
Apparently he did. Scott Frank is a longtime scribe of edgier fare like The Lookout, The Interpreter, Out of Sight, and Minority Report. Kind of weird to see his name on a family film, but there it is.
-Dan Benamor