A Dog’s Purpose - Movie Review

CAST: Josh Gad, Dennis Quaid, KJ Apa, Peggy Lipton, Juliet Rylance

DIRECTION: Lasse Hallström

DURATION: 1 hour 40 minutes

Director Lasse Hallström has carved a career out of making twee and saccharine tearjerkers set in melancholic locations with just enough soul to tug at your heartstrings. A Dog’s Purpose, his latest film is no different – if you’re in the mood for a feel good time at the movies, and you are particularly fond of pets, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Based on the book of the same name by Bruce Cameron (who also co-wrote the screenplay), A Dog’s Purpose contains an odd Groundhog Day style story. We follow Bailey (voiced by Josh Gad), a golden retriever who, after suffering through many problematic life cycles is reincarnated as the pet dog of a boy named Ethan in the 1960’s. He grows fond of Ethan, watches the boy grow up, ultimately dies due to old age, but is reincarnated as another dog in a different part of the world.

The cycle keeps repeating as Bailey deals with multiple owners through the decades who treat him with varying levels of compassion and brutality, but his heart belongs to Ethan and is always on the lookout for the owner he was most fond of.

The film almost feels like it was conceived by people who are so attached to their pets they wish they would return to them reincarnated even after their death. As cheesy as the concept is, anyone who has ever had a pet in their lives will easily relate to the movie. A pet is a family member, and watching a pet slowly lose grip of its life is a heart-breaking experience; you wouldn’t be faulted for breaking off into a childlike dream of either cloning of wanting a resurrection of some sorts to be with the pet forever. Hallström mines that human emotion into an effective cathartic film that reminds you of the best times you had with your pet. So if you’ve ever experience the misfortune of watching your pet pass away, you’ll leave the theater with a tearful smile on your face.

On the downside the film offers little to those who don’t have pets. The narrative often veers into cringe inducing archetypal melodramatic beats like Ethan dealing with his troubled father, school bullies and a failed relationship. We see these story beats from the point of view of a dog with Josh Gad’s inner voice with existentialist problems — Hallström makes it real easy for your eyeballs to keep rolling at regular intervals.

It’s not hard to guess where the predictable journey of Bailey ends, and one wishes the film didn’t try so hard to make the spiritual aspect of the bond between a human and a pet so apparent. Most times subtext is more rewarding when kept underneath the layers rather than exposed so starkly, but that would be expecting too much from a film which has such simple goals as this one.

But who am I kidding, all you dog owners and lovers will pour your heart and your wallets over this film like I did, it gives you what you want, so go ahead. There are films when a reviewer wants to talk about the actors, plot lines, twists or simply the medium, but a film like this makes you numb to all those things.

My Rating: 3/5