A Dog's Purpose (2017)
Directed by Lasse Hallström
A dog goes on quest to discover his purpose in life over the course of several lifetimes with multiple owners.
21 connections found
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21 films that influenced A Dog's Purpose
What critics say influenced A Dog's Purpose
If you've seen "Marley and Me," "My Dog Skip" or "Old Yeller," you know the obligatory farewell pooch scene must come at some point.
“Old Yeller” was a piker compared to Lasse Hallstrom’s adaptation of W. Bruce Cameron’s popular book.
While not quite a dog, "A Dog's Purpose" fails to achieve the goal of a classic like "Old Yeller".
Unlike Marley & Me or Old Yeller , the latter of which is the far superior motion picture even if both tend to get mentioned in the same sentence, the dog at the center of all this fantastical melodrama doesn’t meet its end in some climactic way designed to resolve the story and tug at the heartstrings.
If you enjoyed the endings of "Marley and Me" and "Old Yeller," it may be comforting to know that "A Dog's Purpose" repeats the experience multiple times.
A Dog’s Purpose, based on the novel by W. Bruce Cameron, combines the philosophical belief that living beings are reborn into a different physical body after biological death with the voiceover narrative technique of Look Who’s Talking.
The narrative doesn’t limit its blatant manipulation to canine lovers, as the Josh Gad ( Beauty and the Beast )-voiced, Look Who’s Talking -esque dispatches of the chief hound’s simplistic existential-leaning thoughts stress, in case the plot developments themselves didn’t make that plain.
Thus is announced both the theme of A Dog’s Purpose , and the tone of the script, which veers between Deepak Chopra and The Adventures of Milo and Otis .
That connection between “A Dog’s Purpose,” which is based on a novel by W. Bruce Cameron, and Frank Capra’s family classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) is made clear when we learn the first dog in the series of dogs we get to know (and who — retch — narrate the film) is a red retriever named Bailey (vanilla-flavored voice of Josh Gad), and that the other dogs all voiced by Gad are all really Bailey.
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If you like this, try: The book by W. Bruce Cameron and the movies “My Dog Skip,” “Marley & Me,” and “The Three Lives of Thomasina”…
The movie is directed by Charles Martin Smith, who knows from dog tales having starred in the lovely “The Company of Wolves” back in the day.
These are not cats like Garfield, who often scorn us and bestow their favors sparingly, or an “Every Which Way But Loose” orangutan who can outwit us.
Bailey views the ups and downs of Ethan’s existence as the latter dotes on his mother (Juliet Rylance, American Gothic ), struggles with his troubled father (Luke Kirby, Rectify ), grows into a football-champ teen (K.J. Apa, Riverdale ), and falls for the spirited Hannah (Britt Robertson, Girlboss ).
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The human cast is fine and it's nice to see Peggy Lipton (TV's "The Mod Squad") on screen briefly as the adult Hannah.
If you like this, try: The book by W. Bruce Cameron and the movies “My Dog Skip,” “Marley & Me,” and “The Three Lives of Thomasina”…
If you've seen "Marley and Me," "My Dog Skip" or "Old Yeller," you know the obligatory farewell pooch scene must come at some point.