About a third of the way through the 1987-set comedy Adventureland, the main character does a very ’80s thing and creates a mix tape for the young woman on whom he has developed an infatuation. He describes it as a tape of his top “bummer” songs… and about halfway through the movie, I felt “bummer” was a better description of the film itself that I certainly would have expected. Whereas the trailers and advertisements for the film make it appear closer in vein with the pure gross-out, sex comedy that was writer/director Greg Mottolo’s previous work, Superbad, Adventureland actually turned out to have a slightly darker, more involved plotline. And that’s not a bad thing.

In this sprightly, if methodical, little documentary, Missoula Children’s Theater Executive Director Michael McGill explains that the goal of their week-long dramatic-arts marathons is not to “play a character from the Holocaust”; that is, MCT’s productions are not intended as High Art, nor are the children expected to be the next Laurence Olivier or Olivia de Havilland. Instead, he says, the productions “are a means to an end,” a teaching mechanism by which children who are otherwise stifled or pigeonholed might have, perhaps, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be someone else, to succeed, to shine, to matter.

“John has in essence not lost his faith completely,” says Knowing screenwriter Ryne Pearson of his story’s hero; “he is just is completely unsure of how things could happen to this point with God. You know, how could he lose his wife? How could his son be left alone with him? And he’s starting at that point. So I wonder and question, what was he like before? Was he closer to his father? Did he have a relationship with God and had he lost that? And so from that point forward where we start the movie, you know, I’m anticipating that he’s sort of almost at the down side of the hill and is now going to have to climb the next hill to get back to where he wants to be or should be.”

As Marley contributes to the Grogans’ sense of being completely overwhelmed by life, he also oddly provides the anchor in the midst of all the chaos. As John and Jenny end up “someplace where it’s painful and sad,” there’s still Marley’s indefatigable loyalty, enthusiasm, and love behind it all. In a way, pets can remind us of the very personal love behind an often seemingly impersonal and cruel universe. Pets put the god in the machine. The interesting choice in Marley & Me is that the story takes us through not only that sense of salvific balm that pets can bring, but also through the intense pain that comes from knowing, going in, that we will outlive them.

As it play outs, the film relies heavily on ridiculously implausible coincidences. How likely is it, for instance, that Latika is still in thrall to the weasley punk who tries to put Jamal’s eyes out? Or that Salim—and Latika—will end up going to work for the very same Mumbai mafia don whose limo cruised through their slum some fifteen years earlier? Credibility is not the long suit of this movie, however. No, the magic is romance: the sense of destiny, fate, or Providence: the notion that one person can be “made for” another. Oddly, the sense of fate in Slumdog seems awfully Calvinist, as Salim seems just as predestined for misery as Jamal is for ultimate bliss.