A Dog's Purpose

Writer's Note: Before beginning the review, I will briefly cover the controversy concerning the video released by TMZ that supposedly depicted one of the dogs used in the film possibly being abused, because it refused to perform a stunt, and has led to PETA to propose a boycott of the film.  At the time, there is too much conflicting information for me to make a solid judgement.  Many say the video was edited in order to create a certain point of view, while others are demanding more information.  I believe in waiting until all the information is out there before I make a permanent stance or opinion.  All I can say is that I truly hope the video was somehow doctored or taken out of context, and that the event in question did not happen as depicted.  With all that said, on with the review.

A Dog's Purpose is a not-entirely successful adaptation of W. Bruce Cameron's heartwarming and tear jerking novel.  I think the biggest problem is that director Lasse Hallstrom (The Hundred-Foot Journey)  has wrapped the story in the ancient movie cliches of Americana, instead of any sort of reality.  Much of the film feels overly wholesome and sanitized, making it into just another "cute dog" movie.  Much of the harder edges of Cameron's novel are gone.  Even the book's bittersweet and effective ending has been completely changed to bland feel-good sappiness. 

The fact that there are five credited writers listed for the screenplay tells me that this was probably a troubled adaptation that never quite got a handle on the tone or meaning of the book.  One of the more unfortunate decisions the movie makes is to try to recreate the narrative structure of the novel, by having the story being told from the point of view of the dog itself, as it is reincarnated into a variety of different lives.  We get to see this dog as a stray puppy, as the lifelong playmate of a little boy, as a police dog, as a pampered pooch, and finally as a neglected soul who eventually finds his way back home.  Through all of these different lives and experiences, we have the voice of Josh Gad chiming in on the soundtrack, making cute little remarks, and telling us what the dog is supposed to be thinking.  This is a huge miscalculation from which the film never recovers.  Gad's narration is not only intrusive, it adds nothing to the film itself.  Nothing he says gives us any real insight into what a dog would be thinking in most of these situations, and most of them are cute little throwaway one liners. 

Anyone who has owned or spent a good amount of time with a dog can tell you that their eyes can say so much.  This is something the filmmakers should have taken to heart.  We don't need a celebrity voice over talking for the dog when the animal is perfectly capable of expressing its feelings to the audience.  I have seen plenty of much better movies about dogs that did not require a voice over, such as My Dog Skip, or even one of Lasse Hallstrom's previous movies, Hachi: A Dog's Tale.  That was an intelligent film that talked about the special bond between a dog and the human it loved (played by Richard Gere), and it didn't feel the need to sugarcoat or add cute little situations where a voice cracks wise on the part of the canine.  Why didn't he trust the intelligence of the audience here as he did with that film?  Why spell everything out?  The sad thing is not many got to see Hachi, as I believe it went straight to DVD.  I would recommend anyone interested in this movie rent that film instead.

But back to the movie at hand.  As I mentioned, we learn that dogs are constantly reborn when they die into the body of another dog.  Or maybe it's just this one dog.  The movie doesn't really make it clear.  Supposedly this one little dog is being reincarnated over and over so that it can figure out what its purpose in life is.  Its first life is cruelly short, as it is picked up by a dog catcher about a minute after we meet it, and is euthanized off camera.  It is then reborn for the first time, and we get the film's main plotline, or at least the one the film spends the most time on.  Here, the dog is named Bailey, and he is owned by a sweet little boy named Ethan (Bryce Gheisar) in the 1960s.  Ethan lives with his sweet mom (Juliet Rylance) and a father (Luke Kirby) who shows signs of alcoholism early on, which only gets worse as time goes on.  As Ethan grows into a strapping young teenager (K.J. Apa), Bailey is right there by his side, sharing the boy's experiences with love, loss and tragedy.  This entire storyline is about as sweet and as deep as a Hallmark Card, save for when dad starts to get abusive, or when the local bully develops a taste for arson.  Even with the occasional trouble, this sequence comes across as overly sweetly bland, and perhaps a bit dragged out.

The time eventually comes for Bailey to leave this life behind, and he is reborn into a female police dog in the 1970s named Elle. (Despite being a female, Josh Gad remains the narrator.) Here, he helps his police officer owner deal with some past pain, and becomes a hero.  Once that life is over, it's the 1980s, and the canine now belongs to a loving young woman (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) who longs for a family, so naturally the dog helps her find love.  Here, the dog gets to enjoy the company of children and leads a carefree life until it is time for it to be reincarnated once again, this time into the life of a poor, neglected dog who is unloved by its owners.  When it escapes this cruel couple, it manages to track down its owner from an earlier life, Ethan, now a middle-aged man played by Dennis Quaid.  The scenes with Quaid are probably the most effective and the closest the movie comes to working.  But again, the fact that the ending has been completely changed and scrubbed clean left a bad taste in my mouth when it was over.

A Dog's Purpose never offends, but it also does very little to raise much interest in the viewer.  It's sweet and can be very cute, but it's lacking in any real substance.  The original novel had its moments of cornball as well, but it also had plenty of moments that felt tender and honest.  Here, the honesty has been replaced with nostalgic schmaltz, dripping with gooey sentimentality.  It's not just the ending that made me feel cheated, certain moments that did make it into the film just don't feel as powerful or as effective as I pictured them on the page.  When seeing a movie based on a book, it's always going to seem different than how the reader envisioned it inside their head.  But here, everything does just feel overly safe.  It's as if the filmmakers were trying to make it as crowd pleasing as humanly possible.  The end result feels more than a little manipulative. 

You don't really want to be too rough on a movie like this.  After all, it's bighearted and just wants to entertain.  I have no problem with that.  I just think there's a certain amount of substance that did not make it in the transition to the screen.  A Dog's Purpose mostly wants to be silly and safe, which kind of goes against what the original author intended.

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