Marley & Me

Ever had a dream in which everything is an exact replica of your daily routine? Boring, isn’t it? Well, Marley and Me is a little like that, except the dream is a nightmarish vision of your life’s descent into lukewarm banality as you crawl slowly towards middle age. Essentially, this is the celluloid equivalent of a trip to IKEA.
Even if you are the type of person who finds watching a dog being alternately cute and boisterous infinitely entertaining (in which case, you are a child and accidentally picked this up, thinking it was the Beano) this alone still won’t be enough to carry you through the achingly dull retelling of journalist John Grogan’s career and marriage. In fact, it’s around sixty minutes into the film that you’ll begin to hate both Grogan and his wife for pursuing their self-indulgent delusion that their story - of what is fundamentally just a badly-behaved pet – was of any interest to the general public.

You can probably guess from the trailers that the film is horrifically formulaic (couple get dog – unconventional dog makes couple happy – couple have problem – dog’s unconventionality resolves problem, making couple realise grand truths about life and love and God). The fact that the Hollywood execs have tried to disguise this utter lack of original thought by replacing the friendly retard or maverick teacher (see Rainman, I am Sam, Dangerous Minds) with an animal, doesn’t make the proceedings any less tedious.

It’s difficult to determine whether it’s the piece of shit script or poor casting that renders John and Jen Grogan one of the worst onscreen couples ever (even their names seem to reflect their middle-of-the-road uniformity). Jennifer Aniston’s portrayal of Grogan’s wife is nothing short of hateful, with her aggressive, almost maniacal desire to continually procreate, like some kind of massive, angry ovary.
Owen Wilson – a man whose voice is like a cross between a creaking car door and the sound of someone chewing their own face from the inside out – gives a decidedly average performance in the role of Owen Wilson, a disappointment given that he’s played this same part to perfection in many other projects.

One of the most jaw-droppingly shite moments of Marley & Me is when Aniston and Owen’s characters take a holiday in Ireland. Cue comedy fiddle-dee-diddle-dee music accompanying token shots of emerald green fields. They may as well have had the leprechaun from the Lucky Charms adverts dancing madly in the background. (“To be sure, we don’t have the old electricity here” is the reply to Aniston’s request for an electric blanket). As if it couldn’t get any worse, the holiday is the triggering factor in the conception of three kids, all with good, Oirish names like Shamrock, Potato Famine and Guinness.

One of the sole redeeming factors of the film are the outstanding performances of the eighteen dogs who took on the difficult role of Marley, a character who is by turns nihilistic, endearing and complex. A notable highlight is the scene in which Marley fucks Kathleen Turner’s leg, an episode which captures the character’s powerful, yet destructive sexuality. Further, Marley’s death scene constitutes one of the most captivating in cinematic history, if only because it lasts for an hour and by the end, you’ll be gripping the arms of your chair growling ‘DIE. JUST FUCKING DIE’ through gritted teeth.

Incidentally, as we leave the cinema, a small child skips past us singing ‘Marley’s dead, let’s celebrate’ to the tune of London Bridge is Falling Down, a sentiment which neatly condenses the feelings of every other cinema-goer and ultimately says more than any review ever could.