~*Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog*~

"When God had made the Earth and sky,The flowers and the trees

He then made all the animals, And all the birds and bees

And when his work was finished, Not one was quite the same.

He said, 'I'll walk this earth of mine, And give each one a name'.

And so he travelled land and sea, And everywhere he went,

A little creature followed Him, Until his strength was spent.

And when all were named upon the Earth, And in the sky and sea,

The little creature said, 'Dear Lord, There's not one left for me!'

The Father smiled and softly said: 'I've left you till the end.

I've turned my own name back to front, and called you DOG, my friend."

~*Author Unknown*~

How many of us can correlate with this poem???
How many of us have a dog while we were growing up?? May be not much.

Even we don’t have a dog of our own, but yes we use to play with the little puppy (an Alsatian called as Robo) at the neighbors house and that puppy meant a lot to me those days. We played with him, ran around him, ran with him, fed him, bathed him, irritated him and watch him growing to a full matured dog. Few days back I got a call from mummy and she told me that Robo died a few days back. I was just shocked to know bout the death of a beloved friend, be him human or not. I remained sad for a couple of day and after that life carried me along with it and I have almost forgotten bout him till yesterday when I got my hands on DVD of MARLEY AND ME, a movie that drilled right to the heart of that relationship.

About movie: Marley and me is adapted from John Grogan's debut bestselling book, Marley & Me where he described a pragmatic depiction of life, friendship, love and death through the connection between the author and his Labrador Marley.

Plot: The movie revolves around young writer couple John and Jennifer Grogan, who after their marriage shifts to Florida where Jenny got prominent first page assignment but john use to write obituaries and some crap local news. When jenny decided to expand their family, on the advice of his friend Sebastian, John gets his wife a Labrador puppy to take his wife's brain off family and named him Marley after Bob Marley.

There after the movie shows that how incorrigible Marley grows to a full mature dog while running away with Jenny’s undergarments, eating up his anniversary pendant, tearing up the carpets and sofas, scaring the dog-sitter, destroying their privacy, chewing up the dry wall along with his unconditional love for his owners expanding family where he stood by his owners sick child for whole night.

In the mean time, john started writing the columns bout his relationship with Marley and his mischievousness and became quite famous and jenny left the job to hold up his family and started growing impatience with Marley and John but later on realizes the indispensability of Marley. This movie covers all the aspects of ones life keeping Marley in the main frame and in end it shows the end of Marley’s existence and the loss of family at having him let go. A truly touching movie…

Acting:
Owen Wilson as John Grogan was a welcome change for this guy who is known for his slapstick comedies (Wedding Crashers, You Me and Dupree, The Darjeeling Limited and Drillbit Taylor) but here he brilliantly displayed the portrayal of John Grogan who is tired of writing obituaries and his wife’s wish of expanding family and her planned attitude and his unconditional love of his dog Labrador specially while holding his foot when he was dying.

Jennifer Aniston was at her best in the role of Jennifer Grogan who have plans for each and every minute of life. The way her face changes from mis-carriage (sad) to first successful pregnancy to the frustration that strain her relationship (without breaking it) was simply great and she didn’t looked like acting.


Eric Dane as Sebastian was the man who will remind you of the joy and freedom of marriage-phobic bachelorhood (the way he woos the girl and advice john for not starting the family).

And yeah how can I forget Marley, whose role was played by 22 dogs to show his transformation from a puppy to a dying old dog. You will not be able to stop your smile to this world’s worst dog.

Direction: This movie is directed by David Frankel who is known for his movie The Devil Wears Prada and the famous sitcom Sex and The city (a few episodes). And the way he showed the dynamic relationship between John and Marley, John and Jenny, Marley and his family was outstanding and when the movie comes to end I ensure you that won't be a dry eye.

My Take: Movie has several amusing moments that one can correlate with him/her and it showed a brilliant portrayal of life and love in spite of difficulty. This movie shows that there are lessons in each moment of life (family, relations, compromise, alteration and love) which are meant to be learnt. We smiled through the movie and even cried at the end (may be I am an emotional fool) but truly speaking if you want to see a grown man crying, go with him and watch this movie. If you want to remind yourself how important and rewarding the little things can be in life, just rent the DVD and watch this one..

~*A dog has no use for fancy cars, big homes, or designer clothes. A water log stick will do just fine. A dog doesn't care if you are rich or poor, clever or dull, smart or dumb. Give him your heart and he'll give you his. How many people can you say that about? How many people can make you feel rare and pure and special? How many people can make you feel extraordinary?*~