Little Homeschool on the Prairie: Life With Dog by Mill Creek Entertainment Review

Does your family enjoy a family movie night or maybe you just enjoy watching wholesome Christian movies anytime. I have a movie that will meet both needs to share with you. Recently my family has been watching Life With Dog by Mill Creek Entertainment. We received a physical DVD for this review.

Life With Dog running time is 106 minutes. This film stars Corbin Bernsen, Marilu Henner, and Chelsey Crisp.

Synopsis

Joe is a bitter and grieving man after his wife of 49 years is killed in a horrible hit-and–run bicycle accident. Joe doesn’t think his wife’s Alice is just an accident but that she was murdered.

Joe isn’t a believer but more of a doubter of a God. He could never understand why God took his son Mike at the age of 13, Joe even cried out to God to save his son’s life. Joe has always been faithful to be by his wife’s side each week at church. Joe could never understand his wife’s and daughter Zoe’s faith as a Christian.

A scene from the movie when Dog appears in Joe's backyard

Joe is a bit delusional seeing and talking to Alice. Out of the blues a dog shows up and doesn’t seem to want to leave Joe’s side. He eventually enjoys the dog’s company and companionship. He names the dog, “Dog.” The strange thing about Dog is that he doesn’t bark. Dog helps Joe find compassion, mercy, and even healing.

Joe's deep grief has him experiencing delusions of his beloved Alice

Dog seems to bring comfort to Joe as he talks and shares with him. He warns him without barking several times when someone is sneaking around Joe’s house late at night but, without barking.

A building development is going up around Joe’s neighborhood and the company is buying out his neighbors but, Joe doesn’t want to sell. He thinks there is a conspiracy going on to make him sell and that they are behind his Alice’s death. Joe’s many actions even makes himself look guilty to the detective who is looking into solving Alice’s death.

Joe's daughter Zoe is worried about Joe especially when he is arrested

Dog takes Joe on a journey one of discovery of his wife’s death. One that Joe learns how to forgive and forget. Joe sees his wife’s words that, “He (Joe) is a work in progress.”

The movie is for ages 12 and up. There are some scenes like the main character pulling a gun on a man twice, punching a wall several times out of anger, threaten a man, and says that he use to drop the f* word all the time but, the word isn’t said during the duration of the movie. The word as* is written on a found dog poster too. Also the movie has a man smoking. The story does center on grief and death.

Our Thoughts:

I watched this movie with my 13 year old son and 16 year old daughter several times in the last few weeks. We all felt that the story has a powerful message and it had us talking about it afterwards.

Some questions and thoughts we had from the movie are:

How can you find God when you are at the bottom and need Him the most? What keeps you from a loving God-when you are so blind with anger and wanting revenge? This story we all felt takes you through Joe’s emotional roller coaster. Joe wants to find God yet, he is so bitter towards God. This is a powerful story about forgiving and moving forward.

We thought that the acting was extremely good. Unfortunately, not all Christian based movies are that good. However we felt Life With Dog was extremely good. Corbin Bernsen who plays Joe does an excellent job making his grieving realistic and a bit comical with his wit and sarcasm throughout. The movie moves along at a steady pace and builds upon itself up to the climax.

At the end of the film my kids gasped at the end thinking there was a horrible cliff hanger so don’t hit stop on the DVD and wait a second when you see the names. Then ending shows Joe finally finding peace and closure with God and is moving on with his life and family. Even though there aren’t any words you can see it in the final act and Joe’s expression as he is looking up.

My son made a unique observation and said, “That was the ugliest dog ever but, at the same time Dog was adorable.” “Kind of like God you got to get pass the outer appearance of what you may think about how things should be with God. I mean bad things happen to good people. Everything is for a reason and look at the heart of the matter and be broken to listen to what God is saying to you.” “We don’t hear God kinda of like you don’t hear Dog bark once. But God is still calling you if you can listen and follow him.”

I think my son took away a lot of depth from the movie. I think we all felt that the movie was tail wagging good. Even with the hard subject of the movie of death and grief.

The DVD will be available at Walmart on June 4^th or you can purchase it at Amazon.