Box office The film opened on 3,480 screens in the US and Canada on December 25, 2008. It grossed $14.75 million on its first day of release, setting the record for the best Christmas Day box office take ever by surpassing the previous high of $10.2 million achieved by
Ali in 2001 (the record was broken the following year by
Sherlock Holmes).
Critical response Marley & Me received mixed to positive reviews from critics. On
Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a rating of 63% based on 142 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Pet owners should love it, but
Marley and Me is only sporadically successful in wringing drama and laughs from its scenario." On
Metacritic, the film has a score of 53 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. Todd McCarthy of
Variety said the film is "as broad and obvious as it could be, but delivers on its own terms thanks to sparky chemistry between its sunny blond stars, Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, and the unabashed emotion-milking of the final reel. Fox has a winner here, likely to be irresistible to almost everyone but cats ... Animated and emotionally accessible, Aniston comes off better here than in most of her feature films, and Wilson spars well with her, even if, in the film's weaker moments, he shows he's on less certain ground with earnest material than he is with straight-faced impertinence." Kirk Honeycutt of
The Hollywood Reporter observed that "seldom does a studio release feature so little drama—and not much comedy either, other than when the dog clowns around ... [W]hatever
Marley wants to be about—the challenges of marriage or the balancing act between career and family—gets subsumed by pet tricks. Dog lovers won't care, and that basically is the audience for the film. From Fox's standpoint, it may be enough ...
Marley & Me is a warm and fuzzy family movie, but you do wish that at least once someone would upstage the dog."
Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times called the film "a cheerful family movie" and added, "Wilson and Aniston demonstrate why they are gifted comic actors. They have a relationship that's not too
sitcomish, not too sentimental, mostly smart and realistic", whilst Owen Gleiberman of
Entertainment Weekly graded the film A−, calling it "the single most endearing and authentic movie about the human-canine connection in decades. As directed by David Frankel, though, it's also something more: a disarmingly enjoyable, wholehearted comic vision of the happy messiness of family life." Steve Persall of the
St. Petersburg Times was also very positive, graded the film B and commented, "
Marley & Me practically leaps at viewers like a pound puppy seeking affection, and darn if it doesn't deserve some ... Things could get mushier or sillier, but Frankel and screenwriters Scott Frank and Don Roos—who usually handle grittier material—decline to play the easy, crowd-pleasing game. Their faith in Grogan's simple tale of loyalty among people and pets is unique, and it pays off ... [It] isn't extraordinary cinema, but it relates to everyday people in the audience in a way that few movies do without being dull." Walter Addiego of the
San Francisco Chronicle said, "This love letter to man's best friend will make dog fanciers roll over and do tricks. It's so warmhearted, you'll want to run out and hug the nearest big, sloppy mutt." The praise continued with Carrie Rickey of
The Philadelphia Inquirer awarding the film three out of four stars and saying, "
Marley and Me operates on the assumption that happiness is a warm tongue bath. And those who endorse this belief will enjoy this shaggy dog story ... The anecdotal structure does not make for a gripping movie. For one thing, there's no conflict, unless you count the tension between a guy and his untrainable pooch. Yet
Marley boasts animal magnetism ... Mawkish? Sometimes. But often very funny and occasionally very moving." The film also had bad reviews though, with Betsy Sharkey of the
Los Angeles Times calling it "an imperfect, messy and sometimes trying film that has moments of genuine sweetness and humor sprinkled in between the saccharine and the sadness."
Peter Bradshaw of
The Guardian was unimpressed, awarding the film one out of five stars and commenting, "the relentless gooey yuckiness and fatuous stereotyping in this weepy feelbad comedy gave me the film critic's equivalent of a boiling hot nose," while
Philip French of
The Observer said, "the one redeeming feature is the presence as Wilson's editor of that great deadpan, put-on artist Alan Arkin, a comedian who can do a double-take without moving his head." Further criticism came from Colm Andrew of the
Manx Independent who said that "Marley himself is surprisingly one-dimensional" and the ending was overemotional, going "for the heart-wrenching kind which will always provoke a response, but does so with absolutely no grace". On
Metro,
Marley & Me was placed #5 in a poll of "20 movies that make men cry". ==Accolades==