Caffeinated Clint
Just as the castaways on ”Lost” weren’t meant to get off the island, moviegoers aren’t mean to view Nicholas Sparks’ movies through critical eyes.
But since John Locke isn’t here to stop me, I’ll tread carefully and with only a butter-knife to gouge it’s wobbly bits.
Since “A Walk to Remember” and – in particular – “The Notebook” (girls sniffle at the mere mention of it) made big bucks, and many eyes bleed aqua, Hollywood’s been speedy to turn most of author Nicholas Spark’s books into films.
And despite the fact each book seems to be ripped from the same worn cloth, what with their similar plot threads, beats, and lazy but effective mix of characters, audiences – particularly those brandishing a copy of Cleo under their arm – don’t seem to be sick of them.
Like it’s siblings, “The Best of Me” is cinematic comfort food for the overworked brain and compassion core. It essentially follows the same storyline as Sparks’ other stories, and with only a slight tweak to the characters, but with a switch of actors and small tweaks the ’tissues needed’ finales that are accustomed to the Southie’s yarns.
In a nutshell, the film tells of the long-gestating re-coupling of estranged high-school sweethearts, played by Luke Bracey and Liana Liberato in flashbacks and James Marsden (who stepped in for the late Paul Walker) and Michelle Monaghan in present day. He’s the “white trash” from the wrong side of town, she’s the cashed-up, college-eyeing princess. Naturally, they get together – just long enough to whip up a whirlwind of damaging emotion that it ultimately tears them apart. Years later, they’re forced to meet eyes again when an old friend (Gerard McRaney, terrific as the gruff but compassionate auto-mechanic who shelters young Bracey from his bully father) passes. Over those next few days, the relationship gets it’s long-due second chance.
As a film, Michael Hoffman’s “Best of Me” encompasses no surprises, has hokey dialogue, and makes some ridiculous choices (why cast a guy 20 years younger than James Marsden who looks nothing like James Marsden!? Your looks don’t change that significantly once you’re a teenager!). It’s expendable celluloid.
As a Nicholas Sparks movie, it reads the order perfectly from the docket. The soppy romance is there, the rousing underdog subplot, the usual band of supporting characters (the best friend, the villain, the disapproving family member), and the movie ends just the way you both expect it to and – be honest – want it too.
As a critic, you’ll walk away giggling at the cheesiness of the film’s all-too-hammy conclude, the cliched caper at the center of the film, and the manipulative button pushing that the film takes pride in. And yeah, Okay… you’ll probably even wince at the all-too convenient ‘coming together’ prologue that opens the film.
As a cinemagoer, one hoping to simply be entertained and touched by something “nice”, you might just walk away believing that the stars really do inch us closer to our destiny and that that destiny might just include the most unlikely person you ever expected to fulfill the role of your soul mate. Or so the weeping woman in the seat behind me said.
