It's said you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But in scoring Jay Russell's tear-jerking adaptation of author Willie Morris's heartfelt memoirs of his loving boyhood pooch, William Ross wisely avoids any musical trickery, relying instead on a sentimental score that coaxes, cajoles, and tugs at the heartstrings with dignity and grace. Decidedly traditional, if not necessarily old-fashioned, Ross does a fine job of evoking the humor and pathos--and just a little bathos--inherent in the story, using an American orchestral palette and pastoral sense that echo Randy Newman's Pleasantville, and that's not a bad neighborhood at all. --Jerry McCulley
