To paraphrase Shakespeare, some people are born to be great dog owners. Some achieve dog ownership. And some have dogs thrust upon them.
Consider Max and Nicole, two of the latter.
Max never wanted a dog. Hey, the guy has a hard enough time dealing with his own species, much less members of a smaller, hairier, often smellier one. But Max’s therapist—who’s treating Max for his crippling social-anxiety disorder—believes that a pet may be just the thing to help Max get back into life. So, Max obediently picks up a pooch from the local animal shelter and names her Chloe.
Nicole never wanted a dog, either. She’s far too busy for one, really, given that she works all day and parties—well, more than she should. A dog? The only companions she wants are the human, one-night-stand variety. But when she spots a mutt rooting through her apartment building’s trash late one night—a dog she’s seen before—she decides to bring it in and give the thing a bath. One thing leads to another. Next thing Nicole knows, the mutt is part of her life. She names him Channing Tatum.
Max and Nicole meet the new-fashioned way—through a dating app. Nicole likes that Max’s profile says he’s “reasonably funny.” Chloe—a prominent part of Max’s profile picture—is a draw, too. Max likes the cut of Channing Tatum’s jib, as well. And while he thinks Nicole is way out of his league, a timely swipe of Chloe’s paw sets the couple up for their first date.
It does not go well. For the humans, at least.
They meet at a park where the dogs can frolic, and Max spends several minutes disinfecting the park bench. Nicole forces Max to eat chicken wings infused with ghost peppers, and Max promptly throws up. They’re just about as compatible as cottage cheese and salsa.
Chloe and Channing Tatum, on the other hand … well, they hit it off, if you get my drift. And soon, it becomes pretty obvious that puppies are on the way.
Nicole and Max had hoped that they’d never have to see each other again. But now, it seems, they’ve been thrust together—”for the sake of the kids,” Max says. And while Chloe and Channing Tatum are thrilled to spend more time in canine cuddling, Max and Nicole know the next couple of months could be … ruff.
Sure, Nicole and Max got off to a rocky start. But both seem like they have their merits. I mean, as far as people go.
Both of them, for instance, willingly (if somewhat grudgingly) adjust their incredibly rigid lifestyles to make room for their four-footed friends. They even agree to spend time with each other for the good of the pooches.
As time goes on, they begin to see each other in a more favorable light. Max is weird and high strung, to be sure—but he’s also sweet and caring. Nicole may be selfish and abrasive, but her vivacity proves to be good for Max: She helps him bring his anxiety under control.
Of course, the dogs prove to be the biggest catalysts for our (human) characters’ positive changes. But hey, that’s just what dogs do.
“My dad always said that everything happens for a reason,” Nicole tells Max. We also hear someone talk about undergoing a “guided meditation experience.”
Nicole sleeps around, and she makes no bones about it. She even tries to entice a delivery man to spend the night with her: (“Well, I’m willing to receive a delivery,” she says with a leer.) When the delivery man rejects her, and Nicole picks up Channing Tatum instead, she wakes up with the pooch in bed with her. “I’ve definitely woken up next to hairier, that’s for sure,” she says.
She breaks up with a beau (whose name she never learned to say correctly) and talks about her desire to hook up with guys regularly. (That is, she talks regularly about wanting to hook up with guys regularly.)
Nicole’s friends and family rightly see her promiscuity as a tactic to avoid real relationships. “You know there are other types of intimacy, don’t you?” one comments.
When Chloe and Channing Tatum mate (partly obscured by a tree), Max labels it “non-consensual assault.” After Max storms off with Chloe, Nicole gives Channing Tatum a derisive look and tells him, “At least you got laid.”
In separate scenes, we see men mostly naked. In one, a photo of a nude man hangs on a bathroom wall, his privates covered with a hat. In another, a man gets out of the shower and is disturbed in the bathroom—hurriedly covering himself with a washcloth. (The woman leers at his mostly exposed form and says, “Not bad.”) A man and a woman make out passionately, and the woman loses her shirt in the process. (She continues to wear her bra.) Later, the couple are seen in bed together. (We see them only from the bare shoulders up.)
Max’s friend Sid gives very poor dating tips to him, including demeaning a woman’s fashion sense and blowing on her neck. Max tells Sid that that’s likely why he’s still single, but later Sid’s techniques seem to work.
Women wear revealing evening wear, bikinis and midriff-baring tops. We hear loads of talk about canine genitals. A dog enjoys sniffing crotches. Another seems to get rather intimate with a human leg. A doggie Lamaze class features humans forced to mimic dog behavior, including some embarrassing and even intimate poses. A neighbor with some effeminate tendencies walks a poodle down the street. We hear about someone in a character’s past having an affair.
Someone gets socked in the nose. Two men face off—one armed with a lightsaber, the other with a strange martial arts pose. A dog barks violently as its caretaker says all it needs is “belly rubs and tolerance training.”
About 35 f-words and 15 s-words. We also hear “a–,” “crap,” “d–n” and “d–k,” along with several uses of “b–ch.” (The latter, while sometimes used technically to refer to a female dog, is always used as an obvious double entendre.) God’s name is misused more than 30 times (including thrice with the word “d–n”), and Jesus’ name is abused another half-dozen times.
Nicole vapes, and we often see her waving the resulting steam away.
Max owns the stub of a cigar supposedly smoked by Marlon Brando during The Godfather. Someone lights it up and takes a puff at one point. Two characters suggestively smoke one cigarette.
Almost every (human) character drinks alcohol (wine, beer, cocktails, shots, you name it). Nicole and others drink heavily, too. Both she and another character get drunk (albeit at separate times). We see the interior of a couple of bars. Someone jokes about snorting Adderall.
The movie does its doggone best to draw humor from pooch urination, defecation and other bodily acts. One dog urinates on a houseplant. We spot incriminating puddles on the floor and hear tons about how dogs mark their territory or had accidents. Max pulls Chloe away from sniffing a pile of dog doo.
Max and Sid give Chloe a pregnancy test, which involves holding the dog over the toilet as she urinates on the strip. (Sid gripes that he gets some urine on his hand.) Sid and Max later ask a pharmaceutical worker for the “Plan B” pill; the worker says, “You know how inaccessible this type of healthcare is to most people across America?” and jokes that maybe she’ll just give the dog a back-alley abortion.
Max vomits not once, but three times during the movie. We see it each and every time. We see him sitting on a porta-potty toilet seat during a moment of emergency. (Nothing critical is shown.) Flatulence is exuded. A passing dog owner accuses both Max and Nicole of being poor dog owners and suspects them of being the worst of the worst: breeders.
There are references (yes, plural) to shoving Monopoly pieces up someone’s rear. We hear a joke about dog vaccination being “a government conspiracy.”
Puppy Love is a strange film.
Its name suggests a sweet, silly romcom—and with some restraint, that’s exactly what it could’ve been. Its likable protagonists banter affectionately. They’re surrounded by a bevy of half-wacky friends and relations, always on hand to lighten the mood. Their dogs do their best Lady and the Tramp impressions (right down to the spaghetti).
And plenty of websites seemed to think that Puppy Love was indeed just that sort of gentle, only slightly offensive romcom. I saw the film listed as a PG-13 flick in some places, a TV-14 film in others.
But nope, they’ve got it all wrong. Freevee’s own site labels it—quite correctly—as a flat-out R.
That R-rated content, mostly due to language, seems wholly out of place in what it felt like this movie was trying to be. Walking into this movie is a little like walking into a teddy bear factory and discovering all the plush animals swear with the push of a button. It’s as if the movie’s makers realized the flick wasn’t that funny, and they decided, “Hey, let’s throw a bunch of f-words and crude references in and see if that lightens the mood!”
But perhaps it’s somewhat fitting. Puppy Love could’ve been a nice cinematic diversion if it taught itself to heel. Instead, this made-for-streaming film is … a dog.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
