From Page to Screen: 'Marley & Me'

I read the last hundred pages of Marley & Me at the counter of a neighborhood diner. Waiters and busboys and cooks milled around in front of me; fellow customers chomped on burgers to my left and my right. It was with around forty pages to go that I had the mortifying realization that I was crying. Sitting there in full view of what seemed at that moment to be all of San Francisco, reading a bright red book with a Labrador retriever puppy on the cover, tears streamed from my eyes.

Now, I won't try to sell you on the idea that Marley & Me is a great book. I can't even, in good conscience, recommend it as a "good book," which is what makes my teary diner incident so embarrassing. It's a sappy, sometimes shameless, thoroughly unremarkable memoir, consisting mostly of strained attempts to extract life lessons from mischievous-dog anecdotes. But there's something in it that pushes a certain button in those of us who melt at the sight of a grinning, tail-wagging canine. You know who you are. You may have wept watching My Dog Skip.




What appealed to the masses about John Grogan's book, I think, was its earnest simplicity. This is a stunningly uneventful memoir. It tells the "story" of an ordinary, happy family. Sure, there's an occasional spot of conflict, mostly pregnancy-related – a miscarriage, a premature labor scare – but aside from that the book pretty unfailingly chronicles the Grogans' modest, everyday successes. If it weren't for the many humorous stories about Marley – that lovable scamp – interspersed throughout, there would be little reason to read it. We do get a lovely sense of the bond between the Grogans and their pooch (hence my weeping), but it's not what you'd call a crackerjack plot.

There are two ways to frame this. One is that Marley & Me is a gentle, wistful, accessible slice of life. The other is that it has no dramatic shape: it's a series of anecdotes rather than a narrative. And that, of course, presents a problem for Hollywood, which is about to deliver a big-budget movie version of Marley & Me starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. Hollywood movies don't really do ordinary, happy families. (Neither, for that matter, do arthouse movies.) Even lighthearted comedies thrive on drama and conflict, which are both things that Grogan's memoir is lacking almost entirely.

So it must be galling for fans of this unassuming book to see it turned into this – an aggressive, quippy family comedy. It must be jarring for the author as well, though I imagine the movie rights payday calmed him down a bit. The result could be funny: Wilson and Aniston are both gifted comedians, and I'm always game for some doggie antics. I just wonder if the film will be able to replicate the Old Yeller effect that led to my teary episode – an effect that was, I think, at least in part a result of the book's quiet grace.

What will they do to add incident? My guess: a heavy emphasis on slapstick (which, to be fair, is not lacking in the book) and a healthy dose of invented marital strife. I can't decide whether I think they'll do something as crass as shoehorn in a bona fide villain, but I'm leaning against it. The screewriters – Scott Frank and Don Roos – are intelligent Hollywood workhorses who hopefully know better.

For a long time, John Grogan was a columnist for my hometown paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer. I'd read him occasionally. He did the sort of homey, comfortable metropolitan reporting that may be an unsustainable luxury now that the newspaper business is in crisis: a lot of human interest stories, agitating against local injustice and corruption. Having read his columns, the easygoing earnestness of Marley & Me didn't come as a surprise. I admit to having little interest in reading his follow-up, The Longest Trip Home – ultimately, I like plots – but Marley got me. Here's to hoping the movie didn't turn it into a loud, vulgar mess.