The film stars Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling, Blythe Danner, Jay R. Ferguson, Riley Thomas Stewart, and Adam LeFevre. The actors work well together, but they should have quit when they were ahead. Strongly mottled by contrivances that even the charisma of stars Efron and Schilling can't repair. They ensure that the film is never less than watchable, but it's scuppered by an overly sentimental script and fails to deliver the required emotional punch.
The film has some strange edits, and the widowed Schilling and the U.S. Marine lover Efron are so badly directed that most of the time you just want to laugh at the wooden dialogue and delivery. You could have filmed zombies in a gorgeous 19th century beach house and gotten the same emotional impact. Even if you are rooting for this film to succeed, you find yourself sitting through the tear-jerking part of the movie without feeling terribly wrapped up in it. It is the cinematic equivalent of a Harlequin novel with a pack of tissues shoved into the back cover. I will say this about the film: spoken Nicholas Sparks is preferable to written Nicholas Sparks. Strictly for romantic masochists. Enough tears in the final reel to fill a Hollywood producer's swimming pool. You can make a good movie out of schmaltz. This isn't one of them. Even though it is competently mounted, the film's unrestrained sentimentality will no doubt make many girlfriends swoon even as it makes their boyfriends squirm uncomfortably. Indoors, there is elegant if unconvincing emotional drama you can see coming from half a mile down the beach, with very little com to lighten the rom. Just about provides the goods as a romantic weepie but not the best Sparks adaptation. Grief is trotted out and cheaply exploited in order to burnish instant love with faux-realism. And then the ending - where we're told that we not only can but MUST believe in love, and life, again. Who knew a romance could be so depressingly cynical? This is one of those unapologetic, tear-jerking romances. There's nothing really wrong with that, but it occasionally lays things on a little thick when it should have been holding back. Though the leads are attractive. the plot collapses under the weight of its ridiculous circumstances.
The film has some strange edits, and the widowed Schilling and the U.S. Marine lover Efron are so badly directed that most of the time you just want to laugh at the wooden dialogue and delivery. You could have filmed zombies in a gorgeous 19th century beach house and gotten the same emotional impact. Even if you are rooting for this film to succeed, you find yourself sitting through the tear-jerking part of the movie without feeling terribly wrapped up in it. It is the cinematic equivalent of a Harlequin novel with a pack of tissues shoved into the back cover. I will say this about the film: spoken Nicholas Sparks is preferable to written Nicholas Sparks. Strictly for romantic masochists. Enough tears in the final reel to fill a Hollywood producer's swimming pool. You can make a good movie out of schmaltz. This isn't one of them. Even though it is competently mounted, the film's unrestrained sentimentality will no doubt make many girlfriends swoon even as it makes their boyfriends squirm uncomfortably. Indoors, there is elegant if unconvincing emotional drama you can see coming from half a mile down the beach, with very little com to lighten the rom. Just about provides the goods as a romantic weepie but not the best Sparks adaptation. Grief is trotted out and cheaply exploited in order to burnish instant love with faux-realism. And then the ending - where we're told that we not only can but MUST believe in love, and life, again. Who knew a romance could be so depressingly cynical? This is one of those unapologetic, tear-jerking romances. There's nothing really wrong with that, but it occasionally lays things on a little thick when it should have been holding back. Though the leads are attractive. the plot collapses under the weight of its ridiculous circumstances.
Simon says The Lucky One receives:
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