A Dog's Purpose is a 2017 film starring Britt Robertson, K.J. Apa, John Ortiz, Dennis Quaid and Josh Gad, directed by Lasse Hallström, written by W. Bruce Cameron, Cathryn Michon, Audrey Wells, Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky and produced by Gavin Polone.
The film was a financial success as it generated a profit of $58 million.
Plot
In the 1950s, a feral puppy named Toby is whisked away to the dog pound and quickly euthanized, wondering if "fun" truly is life's purpose.
His strong spirit is reborn and reincarnated as a newborn Retriever puppy in 1961. Toby leaves his cage at a puppy mill and is found by two garbage men who plan to sell him for their own profit. They leave to drink and Toby is spotted locked inside their pick-up truck by a young boy named Ethan and his mother, who rescue him from the brink of death by heatstroke. After they convince Ethan's father, the dog is allowed to stay and renamed Bailey.
Bailey and Ethan bond quickly, especially over the summer when the family visits Ethan's maternal grandparents' farm, and Bailey now believes Ethan alone is his purpose. Years pass and after several attempts at advancing in his job failed, Ethan's father has become a deadbeat alcoholic, though teenage Ethan still tries to respect him – inviting him to a football game now that he has been named starting quarterback.
Over the summer, Ethan goes to a fair with Bailey and meets Hannah, who he quickly begins dating, with Bailey referring to her as "part of the pack". Ethan and Hannah spend their summer happy together though their senior years are upcoming, but they plan to go to the same school; popular Ethan getting a football scholarship and Hannah following him on an academic one. When he goes home one night though, Ethan's father is drunk and shouting at Ethan's mother. He turns on Ethan then and when his mother tries to keep them separated, he shoves her to the ground. Ethan orders his father to leave and never come back, and becomes "the leader of the pack".
Later, at a game watched by scouts, Ethan is offered a full football scholarship to Michigan State, but that night a vindictive classmate named Todd throws a lit firecracker into Ethan's house as a prank, which unintentionally results in a house fire. Bailey alerts Ethan, who goes to save his mother. Unable to get out of the door, they head out through his mother's bedroom window upstair. Ethan first lowers her with her sheets to the neighbors below, then Bailey, however he drops his rope and is left with no other way to exit but to jump. But when Ethan jumps out of the window, Ethan badly fractures his leg, ending his scholarship. Bailey attacks Todd, who is apprehended and arrested by the police when firecrackers fall out of his pocket. Now, Ethan must go to an agricultural school where he will learn to take over his grandparents' farm. Falling into depression, self-pity and bitterness, Ethan breaks off his romance with Hannah before leaving for college. Sometime afterwards, an aged Bailey slowly expires at the veterinarian's office after sharing an eleventh-hour teary goodbye with Ethan.
Bailey reincarnates into another dog life, a female German Shepherd police dog named Ellie, sometime in the late 1970s/early 1980s, while possessing full memories and experiences of his past lives. Ellie is partnered with a widowed officer named Carlos from the Chicago Police Department, and works hard at "seeking" and "finding", now seeing the job as life's purpose. The two form a close relationship which ends after Ellie jumps into a rushing river and saves a kidnapped girl from drowning, and is then fatally shot during a struggle with the armed kidnapper who was a moment away from killing an unsuspecting Carlos. Ellie dies in Carlos' arms as he breaks down in tears for his precious partner and pet dies.
Reborn again in the mid-1980s as a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, he forms a bond with an Atlanta college student named Maya who names him Tino. Maya is lonely, which Tino, having bonded closely with the girl, realizes, and makes his purpose to find her some happiness. She starts a relationship with another classmate named Al who she begins seeing after Tino falls for Al's dog, a black and white Landseer named Roxie, and allows her to open up to him. Maya and Al marry and have 3 children who all love the Corgi. In love with Roxie (though she does not seem to reciprocate the romance), Tino is permanently heartbroken when one day she does not return from the vet. As he lies dying of old age in the late 1990s, Tino thanks Maya for giving him one of his best lives.
Bailey is again reborn and reincarnated, this time, as a St. Bernard-Australian Shepherd mix, sometime during the next decade, only to be taken in by an abusive and neglectful urban couple who name him Waffles. Waffles is eventually dumped in an abandoned lot and reluctantly sets off in search of a new life. Walking past a dog park and remembering how long it had been since he played, Waffles meets a dog and her human who hold a familiar scent to him, though he knows neither of them. He gradually makes his way to the country area where he spent summers as Bailey without even realizing at first where he is headed. He joyfully reunites with his old master Ethan, who is now in his 50s, living a lonely life and broken in spirit at his grandparents' old farm, which he now owns and runs. Ethan, of course, initially has no idea who this wandering dog really is and hands him over to the local animal shelter. But he soon has a change of heart and reclaims him, naming him Buddy. Buddy, sensing that he has finally found the true purpose of life that has long evaded him, finds a way to reunite Ethan with a widowed Hannah, and they eventually get married.
Buddy finally convinces Ethan that he is his beloved childhood dog by performing some tricks and responding to key phrases that were known only to the two of them all those many, many long years ago. Ethan finds Bailey's old collar, now rusted, and puts it around the dog's neck. The dog in voiceover tells the viewer that life is about having fun; saving others; not getting caught in the past or regrets; finding someone to be with; and living for today.