Movie Review: Must Love Dogs
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What Parents Should Know
Parents should know that the movie includes repeated
references to dating, body descriptions ("voluptuous"), and
sex, including a couple of scenes in bed, and one in a shower
(here the protagonist is naked, her back to the camera, alone
and upset), as well as some party drinking. A woman ends up on
a blind date with her father. There is some mild profanity. As
its focus is Internet dating, the film also shows how it
involves performing, deceiving, and self-deluding. A
middle-aged woman "chats" with and attracts the attentions of a
15-year-old, whom she sends home immediately.
Families who see this movie might discuss Sarah's family's meddling in her dating business: they mean well, but the film suggests they are pushy too, such that Sarah worries about being single. How is Sarah distracted by her widower father's dating? How is her choice between Bob and Jake reduced to who seems less "scary" to her? How does the Internet affect the ways people interact, in romance and as families?
Common Sense Media Review
Burdened by a familiar premise (Internet daters are
desperate), MUST LOVE DOGS constrains its excellent performers.
Preschool teacher and divorcee Sarah (Diane Lane) doesn't want
to think of herself as desperate, but her family -- widower dad
Bill (Christopher Plummer), a bunch of brothers, and a couple
of sisters, including Carol (the excellent Elizabeth Perkins)
-- press the point. They fill her kitchen, armed with photos
and phone numbers of the many available men they know, so that
she dutifully tacks these tokens to her fridge (until the
relatives leave, at which point she removes all but one emblem
of their "helpfulness").
With Carol's prodding, Sarah enters her data into a dating site. Though her first "match" is her father ("This is disturbing on so many levels," she groans), she persists, meeting with a number of bad matches (sad guy, cocky guy, preoccupied guy), until she finds Jake (the way-too-smart-for-formula-comedies John Cusack). Also recently divorced, he loves Doctor Zhivago (because it's about "a love so real it hurts even after you're dead") and crafts wooden skulls (boats) for a living. He's clever, speeds through his dialogue ("You are kind of 'voluptuous,'" he notes, observing a dubious description in her Internet ad, "in a minimalist kind of way"), and worries about how he comes across. He is, in a word, perfect guy.
Per generic prescription, Sarah is briefly distracted from this so-right choice by another possibility, Bob (Dermot Mulroney), father of one of her students, cute, smart, and a David Cassidy fan.
Sarah wants most to avoid the fate of one of her father's girlfriends, the dazzling Dolly (Stockard Channing). She sees the Internet as a new horizon ("It's part fantasy, part community," she gushes, "And it lets you pay your bills naked"), but thinks again when she meets in person one of "chat" partners, a 15-year-old boy who's developed a serious crush on her.
Perhaps because he's so young, this kid has conviction, though he duly leaves when instructed ("Do your homework," says Dolly has she loads him in a cab). Sarah's route to her relationship is more roundabout, even though Jake is obviously the right choice. Cusack's refreshingly odd physical and verbal rhythms only make you want to see more of him. And why does Jake spend even a minute with the nubile, cheap-joke-in-a miniskirt Sherry (Jordana Spiro)? He's so obviously Sarah's right choice that the rest of the movie looks like wheel-spinning.
Families who enjoy this movie will like other romantic comedies, including Cusack's Serendipity, Lane's Under the Tuscan Sun, and the similarly structured Sleepless in Seattle or You've Got Mail. They might also want to see the stars' less conventional films, including Cusack's High Fidelity and especially Grosse Pointe Blank, or Lane's A Walk on the Moon.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
