Still grieving the death of Bailey, we scrambled to process scenes of Ellie (who is Bailey) (who is the puppy murdered at the beginning of the film) accomplishing the kinds of things most of us can only dream of: running through an obstacle course and simply nailing it finding a huge cache of guns as part of a training exercise biting a man. As our eyes blurred, the screen was again filled with a sunny kaleidoscope of colors, and Bailey was reborn as a female German shepherd named Ellie. We had come to watch a dog die and when that happened we weren't going to complain about it. (If you want to know how he ended up in farm college you'll have to watch the movie, but let's just say: a bad kid tries to burn down his house and Ethan breaks his leg rescuing Bailey from the raging inferno, which costs him his football scholarship.) His return home was a big signal to everyone in the theater that a dog was about to expire. Ethan had just made an emergency trip home from farm college. The first audible sniffles in the theater came about one onscreen decade later, when Bailey was taken to the vet.

Sounds to me like she actually knows very much about rare coins. Before the film began, they were giggly and giddy, bouncing in their seats with the electricity generated by an unexpected afternoon off school.īelieve me when I say: A few minutes later, these girls would have given anything to be in Spanish class.

There was a gaggle of preteen girls at the midday showing I attended-the children of film executives, perhaps, or else just very Young Professional Film Critics in the mold of Young Pope. One thing I can tell you, if you do decide to see it: This movie will fuck you up. I viewed A Dog's Purpose at an advance screening a few weeks ago, back when deciding to see it would make people question your taste, but probably not your morals. Others have taken to social media in support of Polone's statements. Many vocal online commenters are still threatening to boycott the film. Hercules, the German shepherd depicted in the footage, is reportedly alive and well. (Polone blamed the dog's visible agitation on the fact that its rehearsed point of entry into the water was temporarily changed the day of filming, adding that, once the crew reverted to the original set-up, the animal entered the water 'on his own.' He maintains that a diver, two trainers, a stunt coordinator, and a safety officer were on hand to protect the dog from danger.) In an op-ed for the Hollywood Reporter, he both decried the instances shown in the clips, and argued that they did not provide an accurate picture of the dog's treatment on set. This past Monday, Gavin Polone, the film's producer and a long-time animal rights advocate, attempted to mitigate the damage.

A dogs purpose exposed