THE MERV-U-MENTARY
If you clicked MERV hoping for Merv Griffin: nope. No one’s singing “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.” That’s a joke—for my readers over 80. Instead, we get something quieter and very modern: two exes who share joint custody of a rescue terrier mix because they can’t stand each other but can’t let go of the dog.
Anna is an optometrist; Russ is a teacher played by Charlie Cox (post-Daredevil), looking like he wandered off a Marvel set into the world’s most low-stakes crisis. Anna is an angry, brittle workaholic who seems allergic to joy, and Russ is a sad sack with a permanent apology-face. You’ve met this guy: “We swear he’s fine, but he looks like he cries in his car.”
Merv—the dog—is the one with depression. That’s not me projecting; the movie tells us Merv is sad because his parents aren’t getting along. The veterinarian even suggests Xanax, and Anna and Russ react like she’s talking about heroin. I’m not exaggerating.
Nothing cheers Merv up. Not the house, not toys, not even a trip to a Florida beach in December. (I can’t really blame him for that last one.) Once they’re in Florida, Anna shows up because she “misses the dog”—but what she really misses is Russ. They end up at a dog birthday party, where they meet a “spiritual animal healer” who channels Merv’s feelings and basically tells them the dog wants mom and dad back together. I kept waiting for Merv to roll his eyes and walk out. At this point, I was about three minutes away from turning the movie off, but Merv looked so genuinely embarrassed by the “healer” that I stayed.
All I wanted was a bland Christmas movie with an adorable dog—and I didn’t want the dog to die. That’s the bar now. I didn’t even know about dog boots before this. Apparently, we’re putting tiny boots on terrier mixes so they don’t freeze their paws in Boston snow. Do dogs in Boston actually need boots? Probably not. Are they adorable? Begrudgingly yes. Gus (the real dog) steals every scene anyway—mostly with hangdog eyes that say, “Fix your shit, humans.”
Zooey Deschanel plays Anna, and I mostly know her from Elf. Everyone else seems to find her quirky and charming; I’ve never quite understood her appeal. Twenty years later, and we’re still doing the “adorkable” thing—just with more edge and fewer ukuleles. She plays Anna like someone who treats every room as a group project nobody asked for—defensive, prickly, and convinced she’s the only adult present.
Patricia Heaton pops in as Russ’s mom, delivering a concentrated dose of the prickly matriarch role she patented decades ago. It’s basically Debra Barone if she retired to Florida and switched to high-end box wine. She’s not on screen long enough to anchor the movie, but she’s a needed shot of sitcom professionalism—landing more punchlines with a silent, weary blink than the rest of the humans do with their actual dialogue.
There’s a running subplot about Anna not being able to have kids. The movie treats it like a late reveal, but Anna and Russ spend the whole film orbiting the issue before finally saying it out loud like it’s a twist.
The movie actually gets one thing right: Russ’s rebound dog, Angelina. He gets her after it looks like he and Anna won’t reconcile. It’s a very human move: “Fine, I’ll just get another emotional support dog.” Angelina’s role is pretty transparent, but the movie isn’t wrong—dogs know when something is missing in your life. Or at least they know when you’re sad and eating more snacks than usual.
Buck the dog made Married… with Children. Without him, it was just a show about assholes who lived together. Same idea here. Merv (and later Angelina) are the moral center of the movie. Watching them, you think, “These people can’t be all bad. They take care of their dogs.” The humans act out, sulk, and overcomplicate everything. The dogs just exist, and somehow they make everyone else more watchable.
The ending is kind of sweet, I have to admit, even though it’s telegraphed from the beginning. If you’ve seen a couple holiday movies, you know where this is going: big gesture, heart-to-heart, dog in the middle, some tasteful Christmas lights in the background. It works. It’s not winning any awards, but it serves a purpose.
One practical question: how did they get Angelina a personalized sweater in less than 24 hours? Is there a secret emergency monogram service for emotionally fragile dog owners?
MERV isn’t great, but it knows exactly what it is. It’s a paint-by-numbers Christmas movie about broken people using a rescue terrier mix to patch the hole in their lives.
Final Verdict: 60 out of 100
