For whatever reason, I still haven’t gotten around to reading the 2005 memoir by John Grogan, on which Marley & Me is based. Before watching the film, I knew it was a story about a family’s relationship with their dog. What I didn’t realize is that Marley & Me is really a much larger life lesson; it’s a story about growing up, children, life and death. Marley and me does have moments of cuteness but don’t be fooled by the adorable puppy on the cover, Marley & Me deals with some harsh realities.
Owen Wilson stars as John Grogan; Jennifer Aniston plays his wife Jenny. Eric Dane co-stars as John’s friend Sebastian and Alan Arkin puts in a great performance as newspaper editor Arnie Klein. As the film begins, John and Jenny move to Florida where each is hired by separate newspapers. Jenny finds quick success at The Palm Beach Post and her work regularly appears on the front page. Meanwhile, John struggles to find a niche and is forced to write obituaries and two-paragraph articles about mundane news like a fire at the local garbage dump, for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. John’s feels of insecurity are compounded when it appears Jenny might be interested in started a family. At the suggestion of his friend Sebastian, John decides to give Jenny a puppy for her birthday. While the birthday is a month away, they settle on the ´Discount Puppy´ which turns out to be Marley.
Thus begins the Grogan family’s life with Marley, a lovingly bizarre dog who is in constant need of attention. Marley is a complete terror; he destroys their furniture, chews through anything he can find and generally makes the couple’s life a living hell. The couple decides they need to take Marley for obedience training. There Ms. Kornblut (Kathleen Turner) ridicules John, but learns that Marley is a leg humper and refuses to train the dog as leg humping spreads to other dogs quickly. Soon Marley’s misdeeds become John’s good fortune when he is asked to write two columns a week instead of reporting. The column quickly becomes a hit and helps increase the newspaper’s circulation.
Once John becomes a success, the film moves away from Marley as the main focus and turns to the difficulties of raising a family. First, Jenny suffers a miscarriage However, the couple then takes a trip to Ireland, where she becomes pregnant again and gives birth to a healthy son. It isn’t long before Jenny has another baby and decides to quit her job to raise their two sons; and then Colleen is born. The stress in the Grogan house increases, as John accepts a new job in Philadelphia and Marley starts to show his age.
The second part of Marley & Me is dramatically different the first. Jennifer Aniston deserves credit for shedding her “good girl” image and portraying the perfect bitch for a few scenes. As a matter of fact, the part of Jenny Grogan may well be Aniston’s best performance in films yet. The third act is a sad experience and will have many remembering back to when their first dog died or when an old friend passed on. The film makes Marley’s passing as significant as any member of the family, animal or human.
The dogs in the film are wonderfully exuberant in their behavior. Twenty-two different dogs portrayed Marley throughout the course of the film. Some were stunt dogs, while others were brought in to do specific tricks needed for the film. However, a dog named Clyde did the majority of Marley’s scenes. Bravo Clyde!
Marley & Me tells an engaging story that is internally sentimental and nostalgic and makes no apologies for it. Anyone who has ever owned a pet or has raised or is raising a family, will find something to appreciate about this film.
The 2.35:1 widescreen film is pristine and looks good on Blu-ray. I loved a sequence in the snow and felt that perfectly highlighted the coloring and detail of the picture once the colorfully clad children were allowed to play. The entire film is finely detailed and colors are perfectly saturated. Black levels are clean as a few scenes take place in low lighting. Thunderstorms upset poor Marley. No detail is lost in the shadows. There is a digital feel to Marley & Me and while some may not feel it looks ´film-like,´ I found it to be quite pleasing. The transfer used was pristine and while I have seen a few sharper looking movies, this is well above average.
Fox has provided another pleasing 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio presentation that accurately recreates the theater experience, while adding the expanded dynamics that lossless encoding provides. Marley & Me features relatively straightforward sound design; the front channels are dominant and support the vast majority of the film, while subtle ambient cues occasionally add depth from the surround channels. Dialogue, the film’s primary audio component, is firmly rooted in the center channel; the film’s musical score resides exclusively in the left and right front channels. For what it is, it sounds crystal clear and without any level of distortion or hiss. Fox has brought Marley & Me home in as perfect a form as possible.
Bonus Disc of Marley & Me Feature Film on DVD. Marley & Me contains limited featured version of the film on DVD that contained Deleted Scenes, the Gag Reel and Trailers. The third disc is a Digital Copy of Marley & Me for Portable Media Players.
The 19 Deleted Scenes with Optional Director´s Commentary (25:58) is the most extensive and entertaining supplement. Some of these are simply extended scenes, but there is a lot of material that was left on the cutting room floor and if you enjoy the film you will enjoy this half hour of extra footage that even manages to discuss Feng Shui. Then character of Lisa (Haley Bennett) is given more screen time. There are some good Marley carnage moments in here as well and the optional commentary digs nicely into why these scenes were omitted or shortened. The Gag Reel (5:40) contains some good moments with the actors and the dogs. The Dog Training Trivia Track (17:12) is a Picture-in-Picture based Profile 1.1 feature that includes video snippets in a PiP window.
A number of featurettes are thrown in as well. Finding Marley (7:48) is about working with the trainers on the film and the twenty two dogs that were used to play Marley. Breaking the Golden Rule (8:02) talks about the trials and tribulations of working with dogs and how they are often uncontrollable. This was a nice continuation of the first featurette that also talked about how this is more than a dog movie. On Set with Marley: Dog of all Trades (2:36) is a slightly humorous segment with a fake interview with Marley complete with dog speak translation. The Animal Adoption featurette (5:19) talks about adopting dogs and how people can find their own ´Marley´ from rescue shelters and not breeders. When Not to Pee (2:17) talks quickly about how brilliantly the dogs were trained and shows one moment when Clyde the dog behaves.
