Look, Marley & Me is the cinematic equivalent of emotional ambush. The first hour is a pleasant-enough family comedy about a chaotic dog destroying furniture and eating jewelry. Then BAM—life gets real with miscarriages, career failures, and an extended dog-death sequence designed to extract every tear from your body.

For the right age (13+) and with proper preparation, it offers genuinely valuable lessons about commitment, loss, and growing up. But it's also kind of a slog by modern standards—slow pacing, dated humor, and a premise that's been done better elsewhere.

The real issue: this is NOT a family movie night surprise. If your kid thinks they're sitting down for a fun dog movie and you haven't warned them about the ending, you're setting yourself up for trauma and trust issues. Watch it with teens who are ready for a good cry and a conversation about mortality, or skip it entirely for something less emotionally devastating.