If you’re not pleased with current offerings in movie theaters but feel you’ve got to see a movie, let me recommend My Dog Skip, readily available on DVD or through Netflix. The picture, which is certainly consistent with Christian values, is about doing the right thing. Based on writer Willie Morris’s personal memoir of his childhood in Yazoo City, Mississippi, Skip opens in 1942, when Willie’s hero and next-door neighbor Dink goes off to fight the war in Europe. With Dink gone, Willie’s life is difficult: he has no friends his age, and the other boys pick on him. On his ninth birthday, his parents give him Skip, a Jack Russell terrier who becomes his best friend and in Willie’s later words the “wisest creature” he has ever known, a companion who continually teaches Willie about life. Willie says, “I was an only child, and Skip was an only dog. …Why in our youth do we wish childhood to pass so quickly? We want to grow up fast. As adults, we wish the opposite.”
So far this probably sounds like your typical boy-meets-dog story. It’s more than that, though. Willie does something pretty terrible, the kind of thing we’ve all done and need to atone for. Film reviewer Gene Shalit calls My Dog Skip “a grown-up movie for adults that young people will also cherish.” Right on, Gene. Skip isn’t a classic yet, but it should become one. By the way, the title role was played by six Jack Russell terriers, including the one who was “Eddie” on the TV comedy Frasier.
This movie is best seen with others present, so invite people over. Serve plenty of snacks, and make sure you have your handkerchiefs out.
Film Rating: PG
My Rating: 3 ½ stars
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