MARLEY & ME (Cert. PG, 115 mins)
Stars: Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Clyde, Jonah, Woodson, Eric Dane, Kathleen Turner, Alan Arkin
Directed by David Frankel

ANIMAL lovers will go bow wow wow for David Frankel’s comedy-drama about one man’s journey of self-discovery with a mischievous Labrador, based on the memoir by John Grogan.

Adapted for the screen by Scott Frank and Don Roos, Marley & Me collars decent laughs with uproarious interludes as the four- legged central character runs amok in sunny Florida.

However, the script plumbs surprising emotional depths, too, eliciting strong performances from lead stars Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston as a young couple struggling to juggle professional and parental responsibilities.

Audiences should cram every available pocket with handkerchiefs because Frankel’s film is a modern- day Old Yeller, following the relationship between man and his best friend to its natural conclusion.

Forget a polite, covert dab to the eyes.

Grown men will be reduced to sobbing and snivelling wrecks by the picture’s final frames, which remain the right side of cloying.

Newlyweds John and Jenny Grogan (Wilson, Aniston) move from Michigan to the sub-tropical climate of West Palm Beach to pursue parallel careers as journalists and settle down.

When fellow reporter Sebastian (Dane) plants a seed of worry in John’s mind about his wife wanting a baby, the husband decides to dodge the bullet by buying Jenny a child substitute: a yellow Labrador pup called Marley.

The tiny, adorable bundle of fun soon grows into 100 pounds of uncontrollable energy, chewing up anything and everything in John and Jenny’s home, including their clothes and furniture.

An expensive necklace has to work its way through the dog’s digestive tract before Jenny can wear it around her neck.

The couple labels the pet ‘‘the world’s worst dog’’ and hopes an obedience trainer (Turner) might be able to instil some discipline.