Marley and Me (movie review 2009)

Want a measure of how much America craves a sense of comfort heading into 2009? Marley and Me was number one at the box office for Christmas week. I’d mention that the most famous dog in movie history, Rin Tin Tin was a huge star during the depression. Lassie (first a movie in 1943) was originally a story very much rooted in the British depression. Okay, here’s my pet (heh heh) theory, depressions are about a generalized failure of trust in society. Dog movies are about an irreducible trust between a dog and its family. If you can’t trust the government, your bank, or your employer, you can at least trust your dog to love you no matter what the world does to you. The release of Marley and Me couldn’t have been timed any better.

I had no choice about seeing the movie. I happen to like dog movies. My wife absolutely loves dog movies (we have two dogs). Our daughter who's home from college also happens to love dogs and she has watched her DVD collection of every Friends episode ever broadcast a minimum of four times each. We’re also huge fans of the movie Meet the Parents (it helps that Jay Roach the director lived two doors down from me in college). When we decided to go to a movie together on New Year’s Day, I knew we’d agree to Marley and Me. Besides, I’d recently resoundingly lost a family argument about watching the DVD of Sweeney Todd (I love Sondheim, I didn’t like the movie).

With the possible exception of Fluke with Matthew Modine, an exploration of the Hindu view of reincarnation narrated by a dog, all modern dog movies adhere to a common formula. There’s a dog in some form who is somehow irresistibly adorable. (Even Turner and Hooch ultimately goes there). There’s a family. There’s usually a cute kid. At some point, the dog’s status with the family gets jeopardized either physically (see Bingo, a personal favorite) or because those who run the family fail to see said dog’s virtues (the most recent remake of Lassie). Ultimately, the entire family comes to appreciate the dog and in the process they come closer together between dozens of cute dog shots.

Anyway, whether it’s Because of Winn Dixie, My Dog Skip, Beethoven installment 27, Benji Sells Junk Bonds, Air Bud and the WWF, dog movies are reassuringly predictable. Marley and Me, based on columns and a book by John Grogan (now the editor of an organic gardening magazine) does not stray from the recipe except that this one is seen from Dad’s point of view instead of one of the kids. I agree with most of the critics. As these things go, Marley and Me was done pretty well at least partly because they didn’t over indulge the clichés of the genre. Marley, the world’s mot rambunctious Labrador Retrieiver, is actually more or less believable. He’s not magically smart, doesn’t get involved in too many Rube Goldberg-like situations though there’s a scene where Marley mostly gets out of a very small car on the expressway, and the plot is generally free of anthropomorphic miracles. In addition, there are remarkably few diabetes inducing lines in the script until the end.

From a marketing standpoint, probably the most ingenious thing the producers did was to cast Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston as “mom and dad”. Up to now, Owen Wilson has played goofballs. In this one, he’s a reformed goofball turned family man. Jennifer Aniston’s basic role since Friends has been to be someone’s would be hot/cute girlfriend. These were Aniston’s last five theatrically released movies 1) The Breakup 2) Rumor Has It 3) Friends With Money 4) Derailed 5) Along Came Polly. These were Owen Wilson’s last five 1) Drillbit Taylor 2) Darjeeling Unlimited 3) Night at the Museum (believe it or not they’ve made a sequel) 4) You and Me and Dupree 5) Wedding Crashers. Yeah, Wedding Crashers was a huge hit, but the two were a collective one for ten with their most recent movie efforts.

Fascinatingly, both Wilson and Aniston have stayed on the “A” list largely because of who they’ve dated or married in the last few years. Wilson’s had a tumultuous relationship with Kate Hudson (more or less the same thing as Jennifer Aniston only a better actress and a more famous Hollywood parent than Aniston’s soap opera dad). In particular, there’s been a lot in the tabloids about Wilson’s capacity to handle fame which naturally encourages more articles and photos that make him even more famous.

Aniston’s played Debbie Reynolds in this generation’s version of the Eddie Fisher-Elizabeth Taylor-Debbie Reynolds triangle. The one difference this time is that Brad and Angelina are the ones who appear to be into having all the kids. In addition, Aniston’s had a series of high-profile rebound relationships that include Vince Vaughn, Wilson’s co-star from Wedding Crashers.

One of the adult pleasures of watching Marley and Me is that it’s your basic dog movie, but there’s this whole subtext of tabloid fodder to watch for in the movie. The chemistry between Aniston and Wilson is quite good. They may seem believable as a couple because they’ve been half a couple in a long run of more or less interchangeable comedies so there’s something irresistibly iconic about the pairing. I was disappointed that Eric Dane (Grey’s Anatomy) who gets cast as (can you believe this?) a good looking- womanizing guy who happens to be so good at what he does he can’t settle down romantically didn’t get an opportunity to make a pass at Aniston in the plot, but I suppose that sort of thing doesn’t happen much in dog movies. Basically dog movies consist of an endless series of dog pratfalls, something which provides the bulk of the script here since the premise is that Marley is the world’s least controllable dog.

Part of the problem for me was that while Wilson has convincing chemistry with the dog, I didn’t think that Aniston did. Most of her scenes with Marley felt like someone had dropped Shiloh Pitt in her arms and told her to pretend to be his mom. In addition, there’s my concern that the upper half of her face didn’t move for the first 80 minutes of the movie which may be a sign of too much cosmetic surgery. In the Angelina vs. Jennifer war, there’s been a running rumor that Aniston’s personality isn’t all sunshine and light when she’s not pretending to be Rachel Green. Fascinatingly, her best acting in this movie comes when she’s doing an extended take on post-partum depression.

The rest of the movie, I kept feeling as if Aniston was in some sort of contest to be the hottest mom yet in a Dog Movie. In fact, this is the only dog movie I can remember with an actual nude scene. I have my prejudices about these things and imo she loses to Diane Lane from My Dog Skip and Nancy Travis in Fluke should they ever have such a category in the People’s Choice Awards. I would say that she gets to wear any number of fetching (I couldn’t resist) outfits that play on her talent for projecting wholesome and sexy at the same time. More seriously, I don’t think she had the necessary humility to do what the role required which was to carry off a convincing transformation/progression from hot bride in the bathtub scene that opens the movie to motherly and loving it towards the end. I have to say the jury is still out on her ability to crpss from ingenue to ingenaulder.

I do believe that Jennifer Aniston’s quite a good actress in her range, but her range is relatively narrow and it’s time-limited. While she’s certainly competent in Marley, you can feel the tension of her trying to look 20 while playing 40. Anyway, she’s not alone in this dilemma if you’ve ever seen Searching for Deborah Winger and I think there’s a very strong argument that she’s making the right choice in terms of the viability of her career. Anyway, I’ve yet to see a movie where I was persuaded that anyone should cast Jennifer Aniston in a movie that called for her to be something other than “cute”. Older women in the movies can be quite beautiful a la Isabella Rosselini, but I’m not sure “cute” is going to work in the next ten years of Aniston’s career. Again, I distinguish between a career as an actress and a career as a celebrity. In today’s culture, the latter may be far more important and I think she’s actually well aware of that.

Wilson, on the other hand, has suffered from problems with “discipline” as a performer. He’s good at goofy, but he’s kind of like a movie version of Kobe Bryant. Kobe’s much better when he doesn’t dominate the ball, works to make his teammates better, and listens to Phil Jackson. Wilson tends to be better when he keeps the goofiness within the white lines and lets the movie have a plot, scenes, and a director. Marley and Me indulges Wilson just enough and it’s genuinely fun watching him play dad and husband. Of course, male actors don’t have to deal with the whole “look young and boyish” thing as they make the switchover to middle-aged roles. It also occurs to me that if you were to do an animated version of this movie, Owen Wilson would be a perfect voice for Marley. In fact, it's part of the genius of this movie. Wilson stays on track because the dog is playing his usual role.

Anyway, Wilson’s scenes with the dog make you feel like Marley really is his dog. There’s a scene near the end with the vet where Wilson’s chemistry with Marley is especially evident. Wilson feels Marley’s stomach and bends his head down to the dog’s chest with remarkable naturalness.

In the meantime, Alan Arkin plays a curmudgeonly boss pretty much the way one might imagine Alan Arkin would handle the role. Kathleen Turner, last in a Florida-based movie as the femme fatale in Body Heat, plays against type as a dog trainer who meets her match in Marley. Usually, these kinds of movies are filled with terrific character actors. Both Arkin, Turner, and others are okay, but hardly memorable unless you’re into being horrified by Turner’s transformation.

One of the themes of Marley and Me is that life is more of a journey than a plan. It’s done a bit self-consciously, but they do bring it off. This too appears to be a perfectly timed message for a movie going public whose career and other plans have drastically changed in the last few months. In addition, the movie is filled with bits of lifestyle porn, great houses, nice clothes, etc. Somehow journalists in movies always manage lives and lifestyles that seem impossible in real life. You’d never know that one of the biggest victims in this recession has been the daily newspaper. Marley and Me pulls off a subtle anachronistic feel of a time when Americans didn’t have to worry about all that without making the viewer self-conscious of the sub-text. That was also the "whitest" take on modern day Miami I think I've ever seen.

Bottom line, dog movies generally don’t win Academy Awards except for Babe which after all was really a pig movie with a co-star dog who talked like Clint Eastwood. I’ve seen both movies and Marley and Me is no Babe. At a time though when hardly anything about American society is living up to its hype, Marley and Me meets its own modest expectations. It’s diverting, heartwarming, and I can see Owen Wilson making the jump to suburban dad roles if he wants to go that route. Anyway, if dogs sometimes form the basis of your interaction as a family, it’s worth seeing.

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