Must Love Dogs (Diane Lane)

(Amazon UK link)

We wanted something light and undemanding to watch, so we decided to see ‘Must Love Dogs’. We saw it ten years ago, but had entirely forgotten the storyline. We’re not dog-lovers ourselves but storylines involving dogs are usually good value, often with some canine humour thrown in.

Dogs don’t, in fact, feature all that highly. It’s the story of two people who are single and really don’t have any wish to start dating again. Sarah (Diane Lane) is a preschool teacher of around 40 who has been recently divorced. She’s quite close to her siblings, who are determined to match her up with someone. But their attempts, although mildly amusing, are not at all successful.

Meanwhile Jake (John Cusack) is also recently divorced, but has little interest in starting a new relationship. He loves building boats from scratch, but his best friend tries to match-make and he goes along with it, although without a great deal of enthusiasm.

One of Sarah’s siblings signs her up for a dating website, giving her an exaggerated description, including the fact that a potential ‘match’ must love dogs. Not that Sarah owns a dog herself, but she’s looking after her brother’s. This is how she comes to meet Jake, in a park, with a borrowed dog.

The two do not hit it off, and there’s a side story where Sarah is really quite attracted by the father of one of her young students. He’s clearly keen on her but she’s concerned about the ethics of dating a parent of one of the children in her care, even though it’s a child she finds quite appealing. So for a while it’s not certain which way the story is going to go - neither of us could remember.

I suppose it’s not a particularly memorable film, but it has some good lines, and more humour than some ‘rom-com’ movies. An added bonus is Christopher Plummer as Sarah’s father, who’s quite elderly but also rather a womaniser. It’s probably due to this that the film is rated 12; we didn’t notice any violence or bad language, but there are many references to sexual actvities (though nothing explicit).

It made a good light evening’s viewing, and no doubt we’ll watch it again in another decade or so, when, once again, we will have completely forgotten the story.

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