Life with the world's worst dog
One of the biggest movie hits of the past year came in the form of canine comedy Marley & Me, starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. Now the film has just been released on DVD with a plethora of extras.
Here, newlyweds Wilson and Aniston play John and Jenny Grogan who move from Michigan to the subtropical climate of West Palm Beach to pursue parallel careers as journalists. When fellow reporter – and single ladies man – Sebastian (Eric Dane) plants a seed of worry in John's mind about his wife wanting a baby, the husband decides to dodge the bullet by buying Jenny a child substitute: a yellow Labrador pup called Marley.
The tiny, adorable bundle of fun soon grows into 100 pounds of uncontrollable energy. An obedience trainer fails to take charge of the mutt, so John is compelled to put pen to paper and write a popular column about his experiences in the newspaper, to the delight of its cranky editor (Alan Arkin).
Adapted for the screen by Scott Frank and Don Roos from John Grogan's celebrated memoir, Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog, is a modern-day Old Yeller, which collars decent laughs with uproarious interludes as the four-legged central character runs amok in sunny Florida. However, the script plumbs surprising emotional depths too, eliciting strong performances from Wilson and Aniston as a young couple struggling to juggle professional and parental responsibilities.
Arkin brings a roguish charm to his part, while Dane is little more than eye candy as the pal who embodies the carefree bachelor lifestyle that John happily gives up to be at Jenny's side.
Viewers should have plenty of tissues to hand. Forget a polite, covert dab to the eyes – grown men will be reduced to sobbing and snivelling wrecks by the final frames, which remain the right side of cloying.
DVD extras include featurettes entitled Finding Marley; Breaking The Golden Rule; On Set With Marley: Dog Of All Trades; When Not To Pee and Animal Adoption. Also, check out the gag reel, 19 deleted scenes with optional director commentary, and dog trivia.
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