HOW much you enjoy Marley & Me (Cert PG) will not have anything to do with how adorable you find Jennifer Aniston or how endearingly wacky her fellow blond co-star Owen Wilson, it comes down to whether you are a dog lover or not.
It is based on a best-selling book by John Grogan based on his syndicated newspaper column about life with "the world's worst dog". That's not to say that it is all about the dog, it's as much about relationships, facing up to family responsibilities and career sacrifices.
Watch the latest film trailersWilson and Aniston are John and Jenny, journalists on rival Florida newspapers who get married and acquire a dog before making a decision to have children. The cute yellow puppy grows into a large and untameable yellow Labrador which creates havoc in the home amid the growing family.
He sabotages obedience classes, chews up furniture and fittings, trashes the trash, steals the Thanksgiving turkey, gobbles flowers, punctures pillows and attacks babysitters and deliverymen. Dog lovers will presumably find this endearingly funny, while the rest of us harbour murderous thoughts.
While all this is going on we follow the ups and downs of the marriage – his refusal to grow up, her frustration about the demands placed on her – but although these are very real dilemmas, even for a fellow hack, it's very hard to identify with the glamorous stars and their glossy lifestyle. Directed by The Devil Wears Prada's David Frankel, it's for the most part a crowd-pleasing vehicle for the sunny pairing of Aniston and Wilson but becomes increasingly slushy as it crawls to its (tearful, at least for the dog lobby) conclusion.
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