Woman’s best friend

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This article was published 09/06/2017 (3205 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Marine Cpl. Megan Leavey was a soldier who found herself in the unusual position of being on the front lines in the war in Iraq in her capacity as one half of a K-9 unit, trained to sniff out bombs in advance of approaching soldiers.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite herself gingerly negotiates a minefield in telling a story that could at any moment veer into weepy melodrama or political diatribe. Cowperthwaite avoids potential pitfalls by concentrating on the title character and her extraordinary real-life journey.

Leavey is introduced as a lost soul. In her 20s she is living the life of a depressed teen, holed up in the bedroom of the house of her unsympathetic mom (Edie Falco) in the wake of a tragedy involving the death of her best friend.

In 2003, Leavey impulsively joins the Marine Corps, it seems, in a desperate bid to get out of the house. Following a disciplinary infraction, she is assigned to clean out the kennels of the K-9 unit where she forms an attachment with a scary, high-strung German shepherd bomb-sniffer named Rex.

The attraction compels Leavey to achieve like never before. Her success takes her to the battlefield, where she and Rex face peril from both enemy combatants, mines and improvised explosive devices.

The intensity of the work allows her to let her guard down romantically with a fellow soldier (Ramon Rodriguez) in the K-9 corps.

When Leavey herself is injured, she goes back home to nurse physical and psychological wounds before a situation with Rex compels her to action once again.

At this point, we have a great set-up for some grandiose speechifying along the lines of “I lost one best friend, I’m not going to lose another.” But Cowperthwaite, working with screenwriters Pamela Gray, Annie Mumolo and Tim Lovestedt, admirably avoid the cliché.

This may have something to do with Cowperthwaite’s documentary background (Blackfish). As a filmmaker, she never deems it necessary to embellish the inherent suspense of, say, a car search with unnecessary stylistic flourishes.

But she also resists the urge to give Leavey a dramatic “town hall” moment in which she articulately makes her case to reclaim the endangered Rex with the cameras closing in on her tears and the violins swelling in the background.

It’s the right choice. If the film emotionally moves you, it’s on the strength of its story, not the abilities of the soundtrack orchestra’s string section.

Mara seems to appreciate that, too. The role offers up the kind of character arc that would send most actors into a swoon, but Mara’s low-key approach is entirely appropriate for her character’s hard-won resolve.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @FreepKing