Love letter to dogs and their owners

AT the beginning of A Dog's Purpose, a born-again pup asks (via voiceover) a big existential question - you know the one, it crops up every so often in movies and motivational gatherings: What is the meaning of life?

Over the course of two hours, the film attempts to give the answer, from a pooch's perspective anyway.

A Dog's Purpose, directed by Lasse Hallstrom and written by a committee including W Bruce Cameron - on whose book the film is based, takes place from the early 1960s until sometime around the present day and is shamelessly aimed at animal lovers who will be able to relate to the death of a beloved pet. The narrative is based on the premise that once a dog dies, it is reborn immediately as another one, not necessarily of the same breed and gender.