A ruggedly hunky guy toiling on a Louisiana oil rig decides to lớn cuddle up with a thick Stephen Hawking book on his lunch break. We will soon hear him in a voiceover pondering his “destined path” in life while the stars sparkle in the sky as if a Swavorski crystal display exploded at the mall.
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“Yeah, right,” I found myself saying out loud. Little did I know that I should have saved that remark for the truly ridiculous situations that were lying in wait during the rest of “The Best of Me.”
Besides, at this point, there is little use going against the tide of tears wept in the name of the shamelessly swoony sob-a-paloozas based on the best-selling thắm thiết novels of the wealthier-than-thou Nicholas Sparks.
As a moviegoer, however, you vì chưng have a choice. Either weep with them–or laugh at them. Or stay far, far away.
“The Best of Me,” the ninth Sparks-based film, falls squarely in the mediocre category và makes 2004’s “The Notebook” seem like “Casablanca.” It revolves around a second chance at true love as high-school sweethearts are reunited after 20 years following the death of a mutual friend. The aforementioned hunk is Dawson (James Marsden), a loner of few words who scored 1520 on his SATs yet settled into a blue-collar job. At least it is an excuse to lớn see what Marsden would look like as the construction worker in the Village People.
Amanda (Michelle Monaghan) is an upper-class housewife who dotes on her teen son and bitterly weeps over her crumbling marriage to a self-involved twerp who is an alcoholic, workaholic and all-around jerkaholic. She & Dawson both return khổng lồ their hometown for the reading of a will of a man named Tuck. Soon they are riffling through the goodies of a fairy-tale cottage they have jointly inherited that is straight out of a Thomas Kincade painting, complete with oaks draped in Spanish moss, fields of rosy posies ripe for the picking và an old-fashioned swimming hole.
Cue the flashback khổng lồ 1992, even though it seems more like an Ozzie and Harriet episode, with its soda siêu thị named Squeals, than the year when Nirvana’s “Nevermind” topped the album charts and “Reservoir Dogs” was released. The teen Amanda (played by Liana Liberato) is an outspoken lawyer-wannabe rich girl with a very strange penchant for backless attire who pursues the withdrawn Dawson (Luke Bracey) in the most wholesome way possible. Sparks sparks eventually fly, including a requisite smooch in the rain, despite their desperate backgrounds & personalities.
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Time for another “Yeah, right!” Complicating matters is that Dawson is a thành viên of a notorious Cole clan of white-trash swamp-rat outlaws. They, too, appear to lớn be from discordant time periods. Dawson’s nasty redneck daddy, who can’t keep his fists khổng lồ himself, could be trying out as a thành viên of the Barrow gang in Bonnie & Clyde. Meanwhile, his gap-toothed, mullet-headed hench brothers might be related to the meth-lab backwoods lowlifes in "Winter’s Bone" by way of "Deliverance." Basically, these portions feel lượt thích an old SCTV skit that never made it on air.
However, the most distracting & near-fatal incongruity is the choice of Bracey as the younger Dawson. There is no way & no how that this actor would ever grow up to lớn be Marsden. For one thing, he actually looks older. Not only that, he doesn’t look, act or sound like him. What is even sillier is when Monaghan’s Amanda makes the observation to lớn Marsden’s Dawson, as they find themselves falling for each other again, that “somehow you’ve gotten better looking.” & she is, of course, right.
The one pleasant respite is whenever Gerald Mc
Raney shows up in the flashbacks as Tuck, a gruff yet caring former military man and widower who becomes a second father khổng lồ Dawson after he runs away from home. Và pros that they are, Marsden và Monaghan make for a very pretty couple as they manage to stay committed lớn their characters, no matter what trite nonsense trickles out of their mouths.
At a certain point, though, the coincidences and tragic incidents start to pile up at a startling rate và nothing can be taken seriously. Not that you don’t see these developments coming from miles away.
If a pediatric cancer charity is mentioned, a kid will over up having cancer.
If a parent hosting a fancy party asks his daughter’s dirt-poor suitor to kiểm tra out his collection of vintage cars, the door will soon be shown.
If someone is told to lớn be careful behind the wheel, a oto crash is not far behind
If a vehicle waits as the lights start to flash at a train crossing, something bad is about lớn occur.
And if a character reveals that they once had a drinking problem that is now under control, they will be shown popping a cork on a wine bottle for a cozy dinner for two in the very next scene & downing Budweisers (the official beer of rekindled affairs, apparently) while on a picnic.
Appealing performances by Michelle Monaghan & James Marsden can't save this latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation.
There’s something unmistakably poignant about the sight of Michelle Monaghan & James Marsden circling each other with barely concealed thắm thiết longing in “The Best of Me,” though not for reasons anyone probably intended. The latest soap product to roll off the Nicholas Sparks assembly line, this tale of two former lovers reuniting after a 21-year separation also functions as a study of two terrific actors struggling to overcome the relentless mediocrity of their material. With its ill-motivated swerves into violent tragedy & the near-fatal miscasting of one pivotal role, the Relativity release seems likely khổng lồ jerk as many laughs as tears from its target audience, though Sparks fans might still turn out in sufficient date-night droves khổng lồ continue the author’s string of Hollywood hits.
Sparks has cranked out a fresh slab of thắm thiết hokum every year or so since 1996, and the studios have largely kept pace with his output, hitching themselves khổng lồ a high-yield cash cow that has produced at least one genuine four-hankie classic (“The Notebook”) và any number of lucrative duds (“The Last Song” và “The Lucky One,” among others). Lượt thích many films adapted from the author’s work — this time by writers Will Fetters & J. Mills Goodloe, with Michael Hoffman directing — “The Best of Me” spins a tale of young love imperiled by class prejudice, set against a curiously deracinated Southern backdrop, & infused with the sort of fuzzy-headed spirituality that often finds its characters peering skyward, as though straining khổng lồ see their fates written in the stars.
One such stargazer is Dawson Cole (Marsden), a handsome, 39-year-old mechanic who miraculously survives an oil-rig explosion and wonders if he could be destined for some higher purpose. Right on cue, he learns of the death of his old friend & mentor, Tuck (Gerald Mc
Raney), prompting a return to lớn his Louisiana hometown. There, Dawson has an awkward reunion with his high-school sweetheart, Amanda (Monaghan), from whom he separated 21 years earlier under mysterious circumstances, and with whom he now jointly owns the plantation-style house where they used to lớn spend hours in Tuck’s (and each other’s) blissful company.
Exactly what transpired between the couple is cleared up in lengthy flashbacks lớn the autumn of 1992, when Amanda (now played by Liana Liberato) falls in love with Dawson (Australian thesp Luke Bracey) — never mind that her father is one of the richest men in town, while the Coles are all mullets and bullets, a clan of white-trash ne’er-do-wells led by the unrepentantly nasty Tommy (Sean Bridgers, clearly enjoying himself). When Tommy beats up Dawson one time too many, leaving him with a lingering shiner that must have given the continuity supervisor a mild headache, Tuck welcomes the young lad into his trang chủ — an act of charity và friendship that sets a tense rivalry with the Coles in motion.
A good kid plagued by a crushingly low sense of self-worth, Dawson is too moody and withdrawn at first lớn respond to lớn Amanda’s affections, but he soon comes out of his shell, as signaled by the vigorous baring of his torso. Before long he và his g.f. Are making out in the rain, jumping into a nearby watering hole và getting frisky by the fireplace while the Cowboy Junkies’ cover of “Sweet Jane” plays in the background. (With Amanda’s spirited encouragement, Dawson also considers going khổng lồ college; we know this because we see him burying his nose in a physics textbook.) Meanwhile, back in the painful present, the now ex-lovers struggle khổng lồ make sense of their renewed attraction, complicated by the fact that Amanda is now married with children. Conveniently enough, her husband (Sebastian Arcelus) is a total jerk.
Monaghan and Marsden (stepping into a role originally intended for Paul Walker before his death last year) are effortlessly appealing, hugely talented actors who don’t often get the leading-role showcases they deserve. While this isn’t the vehicle to lớn turn those fortunes around, their scenes together are easily the movie’s finest, as the grown-up Dawson & Amanda subtly negotiate the emotional distance between them and then gradually acknowledge that their love for one another remains unchanged. There’s sufficient drama in these moments lớn render superfluous the movie’s preposterously overplotted third act, recklessly endangering characters in whom we have zero investment khổng lồ begin with; to điện thoại tư vấn it “manipulative” would be giving it far too much credit.
Liberato (“If I Stay”) supplies a warm, vivacious presence as Amanda, & Mc
Raney gives a gem of a performance as the lovable old coot who helps bring the star-crossed lovers together. But as the young Dawson, the 25-year-old Bracey proves a distractingly odd choice on a number of levels; seemingly cast for his ability to lớn look wounded và withdrawn, he comes off as merely dull, uninvolving, & far too old for high school. Even if there were any resemblance between the two, Bracey’s hulking, uncharismatic performance would make him a poor fit for Marsden, whose wry, quicksilver charm may be his defining attribute as an actor. (“Somehow, you have gotten even better-looking,” Monaghan tells Marsden at one point, earning the film’s biggest and truest laugh.)
It’s gotten lớn the point where every new Sparks movie feels less like a standalone work than a minor variation on its predecessors (this year’s model of an attractive but unreliable automobile), and Hoffman (“The Last Station,” “Gambit”) is hardly the helmer khổng lồ break the mold. At times there seems to be a weird visual disconnect between foreground and background, as if the characters had been digitally superimposed over a series of carefully processed Louisiana backdrops; the results feel not just artificial, but thoroughly disposable. And insofar as “The Best of Me” is unlikely lớn be hailed as the best of anything, audiences may as well console themselves by looking ahead lớn the star-crossed lovers of “The Longest Ride” và “The Choice,” two new Sparks adaptations already in the works.
Film Review: ‘The Best of Me’
Reviewed at the Grove, Los Angeles, Oct. 15, 2014. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 118 MIN.
Production:A Relativity truyền thông media release and presentation of a Relativity Media, Di Novi Pictures, Nicholas Sparks production. Produced by Denise Di Novi, Alison Greenspan, Sparks, Ryan Kavanaugh, Theresa Park. Executive producers, Jared D. Underwood, Andrew C. Robinson. Co-producers, Kenneth Halsband, D. Scott Lumpkin.Xem thêm: Công chúa trái đất - the resource cannot be found
Crew:Directed by Michael Hoffman. Screenplay, Will Fetters, J. Mills Goodloe, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. Camera (Technicolor, widescreen, Arri Alexa digital), Oliver Stapleton; editor, Matt Chesse; music, Aaron Zigman; music supervisor, Bob Bowen; production designer, Patrizia von Brandenstein; art director, Raymond Pumilia; phối decorator, Tim Cohn; mix designer, Jessica Stumpf; costume designer, Ruth E. Carter; sound (Dolby Digital), Michael B. Koff; re-recording mixers, Lora Hirschberg, Colette D. Dahanne; special effects coordinator, David Nash; visual effects supervisor, Raymond Gieringer; visual effects producer, Sean Nowlan; visual effects, Comen VFX, Prime Focus, Raynault VFX; stunt coordinator, Steven Ritzi; line producer, Patrick Peach; assistant director, Eric Fox Hays; casting, Ronna Kress.With:Michelle Monaghan, James Marsden, Luke Bracey, Liana Liberato, Caroline Goodall, Gerald Mc
Raney, Sean Bridgers, Sebastian Arcelus.