Title: A Dog's Way Home
Release Date: January 11, 2019
View Time: January 11, 2019 - 5:20 P.M.
Running Time: 96 minutes
Format & Location: Standard - London SilverCity Masonville Mall
"Do you want a TINY piece of cheese?" - Well, I'm not a huge cheese fan, but some pepperoni would be really nice!
Western's Frost Week just ended this past weekend, and how frosty it really was! There's rumour that it'll get colder this week, which is not what I'm exactly looking forward to. But it is only right now that we appreciate our time indoors more. In this case, when the course work has not started to pile up yet, movie theatres seem like an obvious choice.
I just finished a double feature of The Favourite and Bumblebee last night, but I'm not here to talk about either of those. Instead, I want to tell you the story of Bella...
No, not THAT Bella! We shall not talk about her at this time. Just please let me know when The Twilight Saga: New Moon hits 10th anniversary (November 20 this year)!
A Dog's Way Home is based on the novel by W. Bruce Cameron (also cowriter of the screenplay), who also wrote A Dog's Purpose that was adapted into movie two years ago. One of the reasons for me to see this movie after watching the trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pKdCHvH310) is the mesmerizing voice of Bryce Dallas Howard (aka. Claire Dearing in Jurassic World Series). I LOVE the part where she says "squirrel, squirrel, squirrel!"
When I read some of the comments for the trailer, I realized that (in average) 7 out of 10 posts are something like "This trailer is horrible, it just showed the whole movie, and save money on the tickets!". Okay, let me get one thing clear, OF COURSE Bella returns to Lucas at the end, it would be a dark twisted tale and Sony would have been sued to bankruptcy by dog enthusiasts if otherwise! This is the kind of movie where the JOURNEY is much more important than the result. It reminds me of trailer for the classic The Nutty Professor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INanfI4FL8A), where the announcer stated to not reveal the middle of this picture, and I want to ask everyone who have seen this movie to do the same!
Before I go any further, let me share with you the synopsis that Hong Kong theatres have given out for this movie (https://www.metroplex.com.hk/zh_tw/movie/nowshowing/3014), which is translated to English below:
[SPOILERS START IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH]
Synopsis for Bella's 400-Mile Promise (translated title from Hong Kong):
"From the global bestselling author of A Dog's Purpose, comes another work that will leap on the big screen! Bella the dog (voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard) has been on an extraordinary path since she was born; Bella is an American pit bull who lives in an abandoned house with mother and stray cats, and she meets a boy named Lucas who brings her to a warm home that she truly belongs. But adopting pit bulls is against the local law, and the animal prevention centre wants to take Bella away, Lucas can only go across the states and send Bella to a friend's house far away, but how can Bella understand her owner's intention, she only wants to go home and steps on a 400-mile long journey to seek for her family, she is all alone, and nearly loses her life when facing dangers, but her determination to go home has touched all the friends she makes along the way, can Bella reunite with her owner Lucas at last?"
Now THAT is a full on spoiler, and in a way exaggerated! Even though Bella gets hit by a car near the end of her journey, none of these have even remotely cost her life as described in the HK synopsis (okay, maybe that car scene did come as a surprise for a moment).
So, how is this movie? I really enjoyed it to be honest, and it is nice to see a female dog as a strong protagonist once for a change. The last movie I have seen featuring female dog as a protagonist is Beverly Hills Chihuahua. It has some potential at the beginning, but then it becomes another adventure driven by romance, and talking animal films, in my opinion, belongs to animation. A Dog's Way Home has a smart choice in making Bella the only animal character that has a voice through narration, it is an effective way for everyone to follow her journey while still maintaining some degree of realism (many critics have mentioned some awful CGI on other animals but I really couldn't see that), though I'm interested to see how the movie will turn out if all of Bella's narration is removed. (Maybe this can be a special feature for the Blu-ray release?)
Bella in A Dog's Way Home reminds me of Marmaduke, who also has a mindset of teenager trying to figure out this world. The best part about her is that she is able to stand for herself, she shows her independence that is driven by the unselfish love (NOT romance) for her owner. She makes mistakes when trying to satisfy her needs (stealing a chicken from supermarket), learns responsibilities of being a protective mother for a cougar after having three mothers of her own. Howard's energetic voice really brings out the dynamic emotions that Bella has being through during her 400-mile journey, easily making her more human than all the actual human characters that she encounters along the way.
While the trailer of this movie makes it seems like another feel-good movie about human-canine relationship, even though it sort of starts out this way, it quickly turns into a reflection piece on the other side of human nature (the not so friendly side) from dog's perspective. The officers are extremely dog racist and insists on capturing Bella to fulfill their duty and enforce their power. There is an explorer with another dog that Bella has saved, but the man refuses to take either dogs in so he can recover from his injury. And to make things worse, there is a homeless person who wants to get out of loneliness and chains himself to Bella as he spends the last days of his life. Yep, that's the selfishness of humanity right there, and that's what makes this movie appeal to both kids (Bella's journey) and adults (reflection of humanity) alike (The subject of canine discrimination is further explored in the review by Oliver Jones https://observer.com/2019/01/a-dogs-way-home-goes-astray-tackling-dog-canine-discrimination/). At the end of the day, as an optimistic person, I'm glad to see that even after all of what Bella has been through, she can still keep her carefree nature. (After a final debate between the human characters to determine whether Bella can stay with Lucas, Bella says something like "even though I don't understand what's happening, but it looks like I'm home again!")
[END OF SPOILER]
So, if you're a puppy lover (or just an animal enthusiast in general), A Dog's Way Home is definitely worth a look. It may not have the punch strong enough for everyone to use up a box of tissue, but it is like a hot tea that can warm up people's hearts on a cold winter day!
To give you another reason to check out this movie, a trailer for A Dog's Journey (The sequel to A Dog's Purpose) is attached, which as far as I know is not released on internet yet (Universal uses the same strategy for Happy Death Day 2U, where the trailer was only released in theatres first before putting it out on internet in a couple weeks). After my experience with Bella the dog, I can't wait to follow Bailey on his journey with Ethan in both A Dog's Purpose (which I have not seen yet) and its sequel this May!
A Dog's Way Home is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.
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