One need not
love domestic animals to be touched by “A Dog’s Way Home’. But you do need to
like action/adventure films that even young ones can enjoy.
You also
need to like a story that’s well-told, complete with bad guys who’d happily finish
off every stray animal they can find, and good guys, like Lucas, a young psychiatric
intern who becomes the dog’s best friend.
Granted it’s
told from the dog’s point of view. Bella (Bryce Dallas Howard), the orphaned
mix-breed mutt speaks on her own behalf. But as she’s a dog who travels 400
miles to find her way home, the film is filled of scenic views of some of the
most beautiful lands in the US.
Just to see
her making the perilous journey from Farmington, New Mexico on the southwest
side of the States all the way across the Rocky Mountains to Denver, Colorado
makes this film as much a beautiful travel documentary as a film about love and
the indelible bond between an animal and a human being.
Yet the
film, which premiered in January, might be too much for anyone with
super-sensitivities to bear since the story has many heart-wrenching moments. Bella
meets all kinds of individuals in her three-year trek, including one homeless beggar
who chains her like a slave so she can elicit sympathy and cash from passers-by.
Bella also
meets a pack marauding stray dogs whom she initially links up with who teach
her how to survive on the street.
She meets another
far more dangerous pack of wild dogs who nearly tear her to shreds. But she is
miraculously saved by a cougar cat whom she met right after its mother was killed
by human hunters who almost shot the cougar kitten and Bella as well. The baby
cougar and Bella became bosom buddies. But they are pulled apart by two guys
who run from the cougar but grab Bella to take her home as their own. They
treat her well, but the mutt misses her first master, so she gets back on the
road. Her only road map is in her heart.
Lucas (Jonah
Hauer-King) had also come to Bella’s rescue when she was still very young. She’d
been orphaned but by the time the film begins, she’s found a ram-shackled hide-out
where she’s ‘adopted’ by a mother cat and her kitten family.
Since the
property is condemned, it’s about to be bulldozed when Lucas arrives and saves
the mutt puppy. In the process, he incurs the enmity of the property owner who gets
an Animal Control man (John Cassini) to go after Lucas and his pup.
In certain cities
in the States, stray dogs, particularly pit-bulls, get euthanized regularly. So
despite Bella clearly being a mixed-breed, the AC man deems her a pit-bull and says
the next time she’s caught on the street, she’s dead.
To protect her,
Lucas sends her to stay with friends in New Mexico. But that’s where her
journey begins. Lucas had taught her many games, one of which was to ‘Go Home’.
It’s the one Bella takes to heart as she decides to find her way back to
Denver.
Adding
interest to the tale is Ashley Judd who plays Lucas’ mother Terri, a war
veteran who like many vets had been traumatized by war. Before Bella gets
grabbed by the AC man, she had become a comfort to all the emotionally-damaged veterans
with whom Terri communes. It is they who ultimately band together to save Bella
once and for all.
‘A Dog’s Way
Home’ is literally a touching tale of the underdogs finally getting their way.
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