Marley & Me: A Critical Analysis

As a married couple, sometimes you are forced into doing things you ordinarily wouldn't be comfortable doing. You offer up your time and energy, you give of yourself in ways you hadn't ever imagined, you do the work that needs to be done to keep the marriage on even keel. So it was for a recent Friday night when my dear sweet wife came home early, made awesome dinner and dessert, and wanted to watch this film; Marley & Me. Ordinarily this is not a film I would have even lost my 8 dollars on (is that how much movies cost these days?) because this is a film which I would not have even bought a ticket for. But rather than complain in anger about the mediocre quality of the cinema experience, I had figured I would take constructive measures and speak here about my own feelings about Marley & Me in an intelligent way.

Marley & Me is a quasi-holiday film (released 12/25/08) and is the story of two writers; Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson (playing the newly married John and Jennifer Grogan. To begin with Aniston and Wilson are trying to conceive and when Aniston gets pregnant then has a miscarriage, Wilson surprises her by getting her a new puppy. Wilson's character is influenced by the George Clooney'esque Eric Dane who tells Wilson that being married is enough of a hindrance but having children is a trap he's setting himself up for.

So it goes that Wilson gets Aniston this puppy but only with the precondition that Aniston takes care of it. Of course (!) Aniston has an assignment out of town the day they're picking tiny puppy up so Wilson gets it. While driving home from the shelter, the puppy responds to the music of Bob Marley; but not to the name "Bob." Wilson utters "Marley" to which the pup is quite responsive and the stage is set. Owen Wilson and Marley the dog are ready for adventure!

When Aniston gets back, she reveals she's pregnant and goes on to have three kids whose existence is all but forgotten unless it falls around the framework of this dog's life. The children only talk about the dog or about the father who's off at the veterinarian with the dog; Aniston loses her cool and tells Wilson that they have to "get rid" of the dog but she eventually comes around and sees Marley as really as much a part of the family as Wilson is.

One thing which really bugged me about this film was that there always seemed to be a taught tension; specifically between Aniston and Wilson; however this was a tension which was never resolved or even mentioned again as something else just came up after it. Usually the tension would be interrupted by Aniston filling the sink with for positive pregnancy tests! Or the burgeoning family needs more room; well Wilson of course has a job interview for his dream job in another city and look! Look! Over there! It's our new, more appropriately sized house! But isn't that they way in real life?

Another which wrung me silly about this film was the ending. It was a string orchestra laden, series of dramatic pauses and forced crying from two actors who are generally not so offensively over the top; at least in the forced dramatic way. The drama was all about the dog too; that's the thing; this whole family (family of five people, at the end) is built around their mutual love for this dog; not their love for one another. It's rather distressing.

Wilson goes off to the vet to put Marley down and he goes alone (of course; that's how real men say goodbye to their dogs) and before the dog is injected, he has this whole hyper-dramatic soliloquy to the dog where he says things like "...I don't know where we'll go from here..." and all sorts of other ridiculous garbage. I mean, it's a dog! Okay, I get it, it's been around longer than all your kids and that's the problem; Wilson has been holding onto nothing in the form of this canine. At the previous visit to the vet where she said "less than 10% of dogs his age survive the night" and Wilson rebuffed her was tiny heroism; but confessing to this dog on its death bed that you don't know how you're going to be a parent, father, and husband, just indicates to me that this family probably never should have come into being to begin with. When Aniston first tells Wilson that she's pregnant, he was going to tell her that they should not keep trying to have a kid anymore. After the second kid, Wilson says to Aniston, "No more kids after this okay?" - Then they have another! It's called BIRTH CONTROL people! If you really didn't want kids, you'd practice it! Or just not have intercourse!

The very end of this film is even worse where the kids each identify themselves - the youngest with her drawing, the oldest with his prose, and the middle child; the only one who looks like he could really be the child of Aniston and Wilson; when queried if he had anything to say to the spirit of Marley as they all stood over his dead corpse in his open shallow grave; simply says, "...he knows..." It was almost as though Marley and Me was a star vehicle from this one pint sized actor.

But I don't want to be cynical. I will say that Owen Wilson should stick to his comedy leads with the other half of that failed Aniston relationship, Vince Vaughn. At 85 minutes, Marley and Me could have been an average but succinct holiday film; at two hours this movie became labored and totally self-serving.