Review of Marley & Me (2008) by Christo A — 30 Jul 2014

Marley and Me is one of those tear-jerking movies about man and his best friend. More people should own a pet, because as Marley proves, pets bring families closer together, specifically dogs. They give you so much love, and all they require is that you love them back.

There is an Afrikaans word that gives perfect meaning to the end of this film, and it is ''tjank'' (pronounced as ''chunk''). It is the Afrikaans translation of the English word ''yelp'' (the sound a dog makes when calling-out in pain or excitement), and it is mostly applied to people having an overly-emotional outburst.

If this movie did not make you ''tjank'' at the end, then it means that you did not like this movie or found it boring (for some stupid reason). It's a movie that makes grown men ''tjank''.

The story is pretty basic; 2 newlyweds adjusting to starting a family by adopting their first dog (who turns out to be untrainable), their family grows and the dog continues to purposefully disobey everything they command; the man of the house finds it impossible to not-talk about the dog and makes a success of it; the kids grown older and so does the dog; the wife grows closer to the dog and the dog becomes a major part of their family; dog gets older and family realizes that his time is up; they scrape together their feelings for the dog and begin to prepare for his ''departure''.

Marley taught them how ''not to give up''/''how to overcome an obstacle'' because of his relentless antics. So they were not just saying goodbye to a pet, they were saying goodbye to a family-member, and that's all Marley wanted, too love and be loved in return.