Sit. Stay. Love.

image for Sit. Stay. Love.

Short takes

May lack interest under 5; suitable for viewers 5 and over

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Sit. Stay. Love.
  • a review of Sit. Stay. Love. completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 9 December 2021.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 5 May lack interest.
Children aged 5 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Sit. Stay. Love.
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: Very mild themes
Length: 88 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

After building a school for impoverished children in Nepal, Annie (Georgia Flood) returns home to New Hampshire for the holidays. This is Annie’s first trip back in 3 years as she has found it difficult to see her family ever since her mom passed away. Instead of coping with her grief, Annie looks for a project to keep herself distracted and to do something helpful for someone else. She finds herself fostering 3 dogs for the holidays and helping Dylan (Ezekiel Simat), the local vet and her old high school debating rival, find homes for the rest of the animals he took in when a shelter was forced to shut down. As Christmas draws near the pair find themselves planning a last minute gala event aimed at saving the animals but when a freak storm threatens to derail their efforts the whole town pulls together and Annie learns that even though she misses her mom, she is not alone and that sometimes love is found where it is least expected.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Coming to terms with the loss of a loved one; The challenges of abandoned animals; Discovering what is really important in life.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

No violence was noted in this movie.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

  • Nothing further of concern.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Annie’s aunt notes that Dylan is cute and single.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Dylan kisses Annie on the cheek and later they share a passionate embrace.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

  • None noted.

In a nutshell

Sit. Stay. Love. is a sappy, Christmas romance about the importance of home and family. Suitable for most audiences it will be best enjoyed by dog lovers and younger viewers who will look past the simple plot and occasionally cringe-worthy dialogues to see a heart-warming holiday story.

The main messages from this movie are that everyone deserves a home and that sometimes you must have an adventure to find where you truly belong.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Helpfulness
  • Compassion
  • Community service
  • The importance of family and tradition.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Shutting out the ones you love to try to ease your own pain.
  • Staying away from home so that you are not reminded of what you have lost.
  • Failing to look after an animal properly.
  • Getting so caught up in a possible future that you fail to see what is right in front of you.