★★☆☆☆

TAKING sugary sentiment to new heights, this bizarre talking dog-themed family drama shamelessly pulls at the heartstrings like a new-born puppy at your trouser leg as it attempts to find out the answer to the question: what is the meaning of a dog’s life?

Josh Gad lends his undeniably endearing voice to the parade of dogs that populate this story but which are, in fact, the same dog living new life after new life in search of his true purpose. He starts off as Bailey, a Golden Retriever brought into the home of loving eight-year-old Ethan (Bryce Gheisar) with whom he lives a long and happy life on a farm.

Then, as he himself tells us in the film’s earnest and unyielding narration, it’s his time to go as he’s put to sleep in old age. But before he knows it he’s back, this time as a German Shepherd police dog and in the hands of a no-nonsense officer (John Ortiz). Then as a lonely college student’s Corgi, then as… well, you get the idea.

It’s a hard film to truly hate because its heart is in the right place, stuffed as it is with morality messages ranging from the care a dog needs to the attachment that it forms with its owner to the overall existential crisis that our canine protagonist endlessly ponders. Anyone with a natural love of dogs will find plenty to flex their “awww!” muscles.

But the relentless sappiness and mawkishness becomes oh so tiresome even by the end of the first dog’s life – never mind the rest of the drama – coming across as a manipulative Hallmark Channel TV movie that just so happens to have found its way into the cinema with some big names.