As a self-admitted dog lover, I confess that I went to Marley & Me for nothing but the dog. I wanted to watch him make a mess, I wanted to watch him be cute, and I wanted witness the love story that could not help but unfold with him in its center. But while Marley is cute and the story of his life sweet, Marley & Me is much less a story about a dog and much more a story about life in general.

Based on the autobiography by newspaper columnist John Grogan, Marley & Me chronicles the life of Grogan (Owen Wilson), his wife Jenny (Jennifer Aniston), and his family from the time they get a Golden Lab named Marley until, well, let's just say there are a few tears at the end. Between the movie's opening titles and its credits, Grogan and his wife move to Florida and get jobs at local papers. Grogan goes from being a reporter to being a columnist. The couple has one child, then two, then three. Grogan moves his family to Pennsylvania and returns to writing about hard news. And through it all remains Marley.

In the account of Marley's life with the Grogan family are no epic tragedies, unrealistically comic collisions, or overly dramatic dilemmas. Instead Marley & Me tells a story that is really about no more than the ordinary ins, outs, ups, and downs of day-to-day life. And in the same way that the family comes to know Marley as both the worst dog ever and the greatest dog they could have ever known, so are we asked to look at life.

Freshly degreed, newly married, and on their way to Florida, Grogan and Jenny begin the movie according to plan. The future is bright. As they see it, everything they have always wanted is within their reach. But as the movie and their lives unfold, what they discover and we witness is that often our best laid plans don't always come true; even when they do, they are rarely what we expected; and often the most challenging part of life is not making it past the tragedies we are unable to avoid but getting through the unexpected difficulties that are intrinsically tied to the very plans we have had from the beginning.

As the couple goes from newlyweds to the parents of three school-aged children, they reveal that even without such marital turmoil as infidelity or "irreconcilable differences," marriage is not an easy journey. When children join the picture, as Jenny says, "No one tells you how hard this is going to be." Even though she determinedly makes the decision to chose motherhood over her career, we see that such a choice is still a struggle. "No one tells you how much you're going to have to give up," she confesses to Grogan. "I've given up so much of what makes me who I am." Even Grogan—who finds significant success in his career—struggles with where his life has ended up. As a columnist he constantly feels like he is falling short of the reporter he is supposed to be, but as a reporter he misses the columnist he used to be. As Jenny says, "It's exhausting sometimes—you always wanting something you don't have." And just watching Grogan and his family, you can feel that.

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