Something to watch tonight: Friday 9 May

Pets (Howard, 2025)

Returning home from a trip to the vet with one of our cats this morning – blood tests to hopefully explain why her weight is slowly dropping but also confirmation that her eyesight is “minimal but she’s compensating well”, thanks for asking – I was reminded that I had talked about this film on Nights with Emile Donovan a couple of weeks ago but failed to include a mention in the weekly new releases column.

Pets is, indeed, very new and makes excellent family viewing (unless you are concerned that younger members of the family will use it as leverage to get a domestic pig which is a very real risk).

The film comes from Ron Howard’s Imagine production company but the Howard that gets the director’s credit here isn’t Ron but his daughter Bryce Dallas Howard. The subject is companion animals and the impact they have on our lives which is a topic that is like shooting fish in a barrel as far as easy targets go (although not companion fish, don’t do that).

I watched this by myself and texted the editor-in-chief about five minutes in:

I’m such a sook for stuff like this but I really did appreciate that the characters that Howard has found here – linked by very cute kids explaining why their pets are so important to them – are actually really interesting. There’s a Spanish solo kayaker who adopts a dog who travels around the Mediterranean with him, a couple who adopt a pig who encourages them to start a rescue farm for animals with special needs, and a former Washington D.C. gang banger who now keeps falcons.

Pets is easy to recommend, easy to watch, but with a solid enough pedigree – see what I did there – that everyone will get something out of it.

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Where to watch Pets