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Marley & David Frankel & Me
March 23, 2009

Whether you love dogs or just simply like’em--or even if you aren’t all that fond of dogs in the first place--you’re gonna pretty much be teary-eyed at the end of Marley & Me (Fox, street: March 31), last year’s popular adaptation of John Grogan’s best-selling 2005 memoir about he and his family’s life with their Yellow Labrador, Marley. Am I “ruining” movie the movie by revealing that the dog, who lived with the Grogan family for 13 years, moves on to a higher plane by the film’s close? I didn’t think so.

 

“We had to be respectful of the book,” Marley & Me director David Frankel told me in an interview last week. “Marley’s death is spelled out very clearly in the book. It wasn’t so much about provoking emotion as it was the experience of mortality. It’s only our mortality that reminds us that we’d better live when we have the chance.”

 

When he took on the assignment of bringing the best-seller to the big screen, Frankel (who previous credits

include another best-selling adaptation, The Devil Wears Prada, as well as 1994's Miami Rhapsody and episodes of such HBO shows as Entourage, Band of Brothers and Sex and The City), had a clear idea as to the film’s agenda.

 

“We had two specific functions: to make people laugh and make people cry,” Frankel said. “The inspiration was Love Story. Can you really make a movie like that—one where you’ll laugh and then cry?” I think so.”

 

Oh, you certainly can! And it doesn’t hurt when your leading man is an adorable Golden Retriever who ages more than a dozen years over the course of the film. More than 20 dogs were used to portray the Lab at various times in his life. Frankel, who’s worked with such talents as Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, Anne Hathaway, Sarah Jessica Parker and Owen Wilson over the years, thoroughly enjoyed his experience with his troupe of Marley stand-ins.

 

“I can’t wait to work with animals again – I seem drawn to it,” Frankel told me. I never worked with animals earlier, but now I’m looking to see how I can do it again as soon as possible.”

 

Posted by Laurence Lerman on March 23, 2009 | Comments (0)