A Dog's Purpose
Directed by: Lasse Hallström
Written by: Cathryn Michon - Based on the novel by W. Bruce Cameron
Starring: Josh Gad, K.J. Apa, Bryce Gheisar, Juliet Rylance, Luke Kirby, Britt Robertson, John Ortiz, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Dennis Quaid, Peggy Lipton, Pooch Hall, Michael Bofshever, Gabrielle Rose, Logan Miller
Adventure/Comedy/Drama - 120 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 27 Jan 2017
Written by: Cathryn Michon - Based on the novel by W. Bruce Cameron
Starring: Josh Gad, K.J. Apa, Bryce Gheisar, Juliet Rylance, Luke Kirby, Britt Robertson, John Ortiz, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Dennis Quaid, Peggy Lipton, Pooch Hall, Michael Bofshever, Gabrielle Rose, Logan Miller
Adventure/Comedy/Drama - 120 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 27 Jan 2017
In this PG-version of killing puppies, our main canine, who is reincarnated into another dog body after every death keeps asking what the meaning of life is. I understand his confusion. After being alive only a few weeks, a dogcatcher nabs him, and in no uncertain terms, gives him the green needle to the other side. While the dog ponders life's mysteries, I wondered who the filmmakers imagined the audience will be for A Dog’s Purpose. Kids and families love dogs, but what parent in their right mind wants to sign up for explaining policies to cull stray dog populations, dogs who get shot, and dog abuse through neglect to their kids? The mature women in the theater, who I believe will comprise the primary audience, will dab their eyes every time the dog journeys over to the great beyond, but the kids may consider this their first horror film.
I counted five lives. Bailey the dog, voiced by Josh Gad (The Angry Birds Movie), transitions four times before the end credits. The longest portion is Life #2 when Bailey lives with Ethan (Bryce Ghesair), first a pre-teen boy, all the way until Ethan (K.J. Apa) leaves for college. Bailey, still learning how to be a dog since he didn’t get too much practice the first time, explains in voiceover his interpretation of human behavior through dog speak. Kissing is humans licking one another, possibly sharing food, a donkey is a small horse-dog, and Ethan’s dad talks very loud when his breath starts to smell funny after drinking whatever is in those bottles. We even get dog’s eye view every now and again when Bailey chases chickens or sticks his snout under up a lady’s skirt.
I counted five lives. Bailey the dog, voiced by Josh Gad (The Angry Birds Movie), transitions four times before the end credits. The longest portion is Life #2 when Bailey lives with Ethan (Bryce Ghesair), first a pre-teen boy, all the way until Ethan (K.J. Apa) leaves for college. Bailey, still learning how to be a dog since he didn’t get too much practice the first time, explains in voiceover his interpretation of human behavior through dog speak. Kissing is humans licking one another, possibly sharing food, a donkey is a small horse-dog, and Ethan’s dad talks very loud when his breath starts to smell funny after drinking whatever is in those bottles. We even get dog’s eye view every now and again when Bailey chases chickens or sticks his snout under up a lady’s skirt.
Young Ethan’s transition from lad to man is a Lifetime Channel, by the book, Johnny Football star scenario. He’s the team quarterback, he has the pretty girl on his arm, Hannah (Britt Robertson, Tomorrowland), and he has a full scholarship in the fall to Michigan State. Just like the future Bailey caretakers, Ethan also takes Bailey wherever he goes, even to inappropriate places you would never take your dog. Who takes their dog to the carnival on Saturday night and who takes their dog to football practice and Friday night’s game? Later on, Bailey’s owners take him inside fancy restaurants and to university classes.
This is because we only see what Bailey sees. We understand the situation more than the dog, but if he’s not there, we don’t see it. Therefore, when Ethan challenges a bully in the ice cream parlor parking lot, Bailey is there to watch, and when that bully sets Ethan’s house, the most flammable residence ever built, on fire, Bailey is there to warn everyone about the flames Lassie style. A Dog’s Purpose is a combination of Lassie and The Twilight Zone. Bailey frequently encounters situations where he needs to warn about danger or convey information akin to Timmy’s stuck in the mine, and much later on, when a later version of Bailey wants to tell on the verge of retirement Ethan (Dennis Quaid, Truth) that he really is his old childhood dog, it’s take about 20 seconds for that knowledge to go from dog to human.
In another life, Bailey is a German Shepherd police dog concluding that folks who live alone are lonely and sad. His handler (John Ortiz, The Finest Hours) eats and sleeps alone, and to Bailey, this lifestyle is unacceptable. Later on, Bailey is a corgi adopted by a shy and lonely college student, Maya (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), who turns him diabetic with all the junk food she offers him. To Bailey, Maya is not complete until he hooks her up with a man and they have three children. A Dog’s Purpose is a screen adaptation from W. Bruce Cameron’s bestselling novel. This gentleman also wrote 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter which launched a later sitcom. Adapted by Cathryn Michon, who has some Designing Women episodes to her name and a movie called Muffin Top: A Love Story, the script is a campy version of what is now considered 1960s nostalgia with some cloying dog death scenes melodramatically built up to ensure social media mavens encourage one another to bring Kleenex to the movie theater.
I would never take my kid to see this movie. Sure, he’s already learning about the concept of death and asks questions about where we go when we die, but why force dog abuse and reincarnation into that delicate balance? This is a surprising director’s credit for Lasse Hallström, the man behind What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Cider House Rules, and Chocolat. He must self-identify as a strong dog lover since he already directed a dog-centric story in Hachi: A Dog’s Tale where Richard Gere bonds with a stray. There are rumblings of a potential boycott due to nebulous footage of a petrified German Shepherd being forced into rough, running water in a studio, but I believe families would already avoid A Dog’s Purpose to spare their children possible shock and trauma.
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