Megan Leavey
It’s hard not to like a good old-fashioned, drawn from life, girl-and-her-dog story.
Megan Leavey is exactly the sort of movie you would expect it to be, if you’re familiar with the general outline of the story of the real U.S. Marine Corps K-9 handler and her dog Rex. That’s to say it’s a feel-good tale with the contrast tweaked up a bit for dramatic purposes. Otherwise it is airily faithful to the genuinely uplifting truth. This isn’t All Quiet on the Western Front. While there are tense battle scenes and a few flag-draped coffins, it’s as gentle a war movie as you’re ever likely to see.
It is aggressively apolitical (though certainly pro-military). That feels like a good choice, given that, like her real counterpart, the fictionalized Megan Leavey (Kate Mara) joins the Marines primarily because, after quitting college, she needs some focus in her life. It’s a couple of years after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and she has been fired by a sympathetic employer who has advised her that she “just doesn’t connect with people very well.” She needs to put herself in a position where she can’t quit. Her divorced mother (Edie Falco) disapproves of the choice, but her mother disapproves of all of Megan’s choices.
So Leavey’s on a bus to Camp Pendleton for basic training, which rushes by in a brief montage that nevertheless manages to suggest that while she’s game, she’s also a little bit of a misfit. She’s not picked on or ostracized, but — and credit Mara with some subtle acting here — Leavey’s just a little too introverted to completely mesh with her colleagues. But she tries, maybe a little too hard.
After completing training, she seems to embark on a career as the company screw-up, which lands
her an assignment cleaning the kennels of bomb-sniffing dogs.
Watching the handlers work with their dogs inspires her, and soon she’s petitioning Gunnery Sgt. Martin (Common, having great fun and doing entertaining work) in charge of the K9 unit for a spot on the team. After an obligatory period of discouragement, during which Martin tells Leavey that he’s not about to let a lousy screw-up into his outfit, she improves her marksmanship and discipline and is eventually issued a surrogate dog — an ammo can which she pulls around the agility training course.
It’s only when a fellow trainer’s hand is crushed by a dog that Megan gets her chance — with that problematic dog. Rex is a bit like Megan. He has issues, but also the heart of a warrior, and it’s not long before they bond. They’re shipped out to Fallujah in 2005 to sniff out real bombs and save real lives.
Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite, making the transition from documentaries (Blackfish) to features, demonstrates some remarkable restraint in what could have been a by-the-numbers production. The war zone scenes in Iraq are depicted matter-of-factly, with a bass note of terror humming underneath the banal operation of the city. Similarly, Rex (disappointingly, the production notes don’t tell us the name of the very good canine actor — or actors) retains a bit of skittishness and temper even after he has bonded with Kate.
Perhaps Cowperthwaite could have made more of Megan’s ground-breaking role as a woman in combat, but maybe we could look at that as a quiet breakthrough. While Wonder Woman, which opened last Friday, drew lots of attention to the woman directing the female heroine, Megan Leavey is a more all-around-modest effort. It’s small “f” feminist in that Megan — a high school athlete and New York Yankees fan — seems to be able to take or leave the affection of the love interest (Ramon Rodriguez) provided for her. Though she definitely earned her war hero status, she’s really not an exceptional person — it’s just by the end of the movie she has grown up enough to live in her own skin.
For those who know how Megan and Rex’s story turns out — probably not an inconsiderable number considering her appearances on network morning shows and the book that another of Rex’s handlers (one who came before Megan) wrote about the dog’s exploits — the third act might feel a little anti-climatic. But all in all, Megan Leavey is a nice little movie about a person who really seemed to find herself through service, and through a relationship with an animal.
While there’s plenty of Hollywood airbrushing around the edges, this movie feels honest. It’s hard not to wish it — and its namesake — well.