Who is Marley and Me? Is it John Grogan? (Owen Wilson), Jenny Grogan? (Jennifer Aniston), or one of their three children? Marley and Me follows the life’s of the Grogan family and their pet Labrador Marley who transforms from an innocent puppy to a fully grown nightmare. Parallel narratives soon develop between John Grogan and his family life, and John Groan and his work life as an aspiring journalist in Southern Florida. The tensions between the two immediately step away from the traditional Hollywood formula, showing a rather sentimental outlook to a normal family life that is centred so heavily around love and commitment, immediately transpiring Marley and Me into a sentimental family film.
Despite the ellipsis in time that the film focuses on, the notion of time in this film doesn’t worsen things or discard moments from the past, but time serves as a reminder of how precious life really is and how a family unit is so integral to contemporary American life. John and Jenny try for their first child only to discover that it died in the womb. They try again and they welcome their first baby boy to the family, and again another baby boy, and finally they have a girl. No this isn’t just too perfect and convenient, but rather sentimental and aspiring, transporting the viewer into Hollywood, but a Hollywood that the viewer can finally achieve in themselves- one of family values and animals. Why don’t we all give it a go?
As time passes and the children get older, so does Marley. The past, this time of innocence and memory is fading as the tears roll down the face of the viewer. Marley is taken to the vets initially because of a problem with his stomach. He is released and sent home where he belongs, as part of American life and a family unit. His health later deteriorates and he is ‘put down’ at the vets. The film, although simple on the surface, raises issues of American life, Hollywood dreams, the past and future and even the family film as a contemporary genre. Is Marley in fact more than a dog, is a representative of the first child that Jenny never had? Does this suggest that animals are an integral element to a perfect family unit? Marley and Me is poetic, loving and an aspiring contemporary family film. In the theatre, you feel transported to a family that is far from perfect, but they are ‘real’. This is such a central ideology to the film that no one is perfect but its being ‘real’ that matters, something that Marley represented. Even though Marley did die, his spirit will live on, showing how sentimental and poetic American cinema can truly be.
Despite the ellipsis in time that the film focuses on, the notion of time in this film doesn’t worsen things or discard moments from the past, but time serves as a reminder of how precious life really is and how a family unit is so integral to contemporary American life. John and Jenny try for their first child only to discover that it died in the womb. They try again and they welcome their first baby boy to the family, and again another baby boy, and finally they have a girl. No this isn’t just too perfect and convenient, but rather sentimental and aspiring, transporting the viewer into Hollywood, but a Hollywood that the viewer can finally achieve in themselves- one of family values and animals. Why don’t we all give it a go?
As time passes and the children get older, so does Marley. The past, this time of innocence and memory is fading as the tears roll down the face of the viewer. Marley is taken to the vets initially because of a problem with his stomach. He is released and sent home where he belongs, as part of American life and a family unit. His health later deteriorates and he is ‘put down’ at the vets. The film, although simple on the surface, raises issues of American life, Hollywood dreams, the past and future and even the family film as a contemporary genre. Is Marley in fact more than a dog, is a representative of the first child that Jenny never had? Does this suggest that animals are an integral element to a perfect family unit? Marley and Me is poetic, loving and an aspiring contemporary family film. In the theatre, you feel transported to a family that is far from perfect, but they are ‘real’. This is such a central ideology to the film that no one is perfect but its being ‘real’ that matters, something that Marley represented. Even though Marley did die, his spirit will live on, showing how sentimental and poetic American cinema can truly be.
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