Marley & Me is a 2008 American comedy-drama film directed by David Frankel from a screenplay by Scott Frank and Don Roos, based on the 2005 memoir of the same name by John Grogan. The film stars Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston as the owners of Marley, a Labrador retriever. Marley & Me was released in the United States and Canada on December 25, 2008, and set a record for the largest Christmas Day box office ever with $14.75 million in ticket sales. The film was followed by a 2011 direct-to-video prequel, Marley & Me: The Puppy Years.
DETAILED PLOT
Newlyweds John and Jenny Grogan (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) escape the brutal Michigan winters and relocate to South Florida, each landing reporter jobs at competing newspapers. At The Palm Beach Post, Jenny immediately receives prominent front-page assignments, while at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, John finds himself writing obituaries and mundane two-paragraph news articles.
When John senses Jenny is contemplating motherhood, his friend and co-worker, Sebastian Tunney (Eric Dane), suggests adopting a dog to test their readiness to raise a family. They choose a yellow Labrador retriever puppy that John names Marley (after Bob Marley). He soon proves to be incorrigible, forcing John and Jenny to enroll him in dog obedience. However, neither the classes nor neutering him has any effect on curbing Marley's rowdy behavior.
Editor Arnie Klein (Alan Arkin) offers John a twice-weekly column writing anything he likes. Initially stumped for ideas, John realizes that Marley's misadventures might be the perfect topic for his first column. Arnie loves it, and Marley's continual wreaking havoc on the household provides John a wealth of material. The column proves popular with readers and eventually helps double the paper's circulation. Meanwhile, Jenny miscarries early in her first trimester, leaving them devastated.
Jenny and John have a belated honeymoon in Ireland, leaving Marley at home, under a young woman's care. She can't control him well, and John and Jenny return to a damaged house. Soon after, Jenny discovers she's pregnant and delivers a healthy boy, Patrick. When a second son, Connor, arrives, Jenny opts to be a stay-at-home mom, so John takes on a daily column for a doubled salary. With their family growing and concern over the neighborhood's crime rate, they move to a larger house in Boca Raton, where Marley delights in swimming in the backyard pool.
Jenny exhibits postpartum depression symptoms, stressed with raising two small children, and becoming increasingly impatient and irritable with Marley and also John. Sebastian agrees to take Marley for a few days after Jenny, upset and angry, demands John find him a new home. Jenny quickly realizes Marley is an indispensable part of the family. A few years later, they have a daughter, Colleen.
After turning 40, and envious when Sebastian is hired by The New York Times, John grows dissatisfied with being a columnist. With Jenny's blessing, he accepts a reporter job with The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the family moves to a farm in rural Pennsylvania. John soon realizes he is a better columnist than reporter and pitches a column idea to his editor. Life is idyllic until the aging Marley suffers a near-fatal intestinal disorder. He recovers, but, too old for corrective surgery, suffers a second attack later. Marley is euthanized with John at his side. The family pay their last respects to their beloved pet as they bury him beneath a tree in their front yard.