Ok, so I have this great idea — I’m going to get a time machine, find my college self and have him travel the South while periodically brooding alone in coffee shops. He will invariably attract the local princess of incomparable beauty, fall in love and have some winning sex until her rich father offers a big paycheck for him (me) to leave her alone. Then, instead of following script, he (I) will take the payday and travel to another town.
Of course, I’m going to have to have been exponentially hunkier and better looking, but it will be worth it.
The Best of Me is a two-phase romance, told in timelines of today and twenty-one years prior to today. In the present day, we’re supposed to guess why drifter and off-shore drilling expert Dawson (James Marsden) isn’t an on-shore drilling expert of housewife Amanda (Michelle Monaghan). To help us along, we get the high school meet cute twenty-one years previous, which is kind of neither meet nor cute. L’il Dawson (Luke Bracey) urges his peer robber barons not to be jerks, but they are, which prompts their collective girltoy li’l Amanda (Liana Liberato) to be drawn to this hunky introverted stranger. Ah, isn’t that always the case. I swear I will always love movies if for no other reason than because the introvert always gets the guy/girl … just like real life, right?
I’ve put this off far too long. I’m going to need a Nicholas Sparks checklist:
• Pretty, pretty, pretty people
• Protagonist who leads the league in taciturn
• Wizened father/mother figure
• Douche-y mother/father figure
• Sunrise/sunset on a southern beach/on a bayou if in Louisiana
• Wealth disparity at issue
• Love triangle at issue
• Fact that somebody HOT isn’t already taken at issue (for me)
• Subhuman abusive alpha male creates conflict
• Unnecessarily violent confrontation …
• That completely dwarfs everything else in the picture rendering the romance meaningless in the long term if you really think about it.
Nicholas Sparks romances are, in their own way, the most cynical films ever brought to screen. On the surface, they’re all about the romance: somebody needs a break, somebody a generation above offers it, somebody of the opposite sex takes interest. There’s attraction, but innocence. Here’s my basic problem with the Sparks formula — whether or not the guy/girl is a knockout should be the least concern when you put together a romance. Sure, for many, that’s the “romantic” part, but for people like me, it’s alienating. You only discover the introvert because he/she is a serious l
ooker? Does that mean the rest of us should behave like the apes you tend to trash just so we have a fighting chance? Look at the men in Sparks’ films: James Marsden, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron, Channing Tatum, Ryan Gosling … you can’t compete with that. Neither can I. But the girl always has to recognize the “hidden treasure” in this flawed and often too-quiet man. Gimme a break.
The Best of Me is a backhanded endorsement of Boyhood because neither “younger version” of boy or girl will remind you of the elder. Liana Liberato looks nothing like Michelle Monaghan, but that comparison pales to Luke Bracey, who isn’t even ballpark as a young James Marsden. You could convince me of James Remar, Chris Cooper or even Matthew Modine, but that uneven smirk is a dead giveaway that he’s a guy who more-often-than-not can’t get away with his looks. That’s a huge physiological/psychological difference from Mardsen.
And with all that? This film actually had me for about 55 minutes. I was totally into it. And then Amanda’s dad had to offer that stupid “stay away from my daughter” bribe and the entire loom started to unravel. Congrats on almost an hour, Michael Hoffman.
Dawson returns for a mourn
And to quell Amanda’s scorn
Both have a past
And we learn at last
How years ago, a scar is born
Rated PG-13, 117 Minutes
D: Michael Hoffman
W: J. Mills Goodloe and Will Fetters
Genre: The evil of Nicholas Sparks
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Bigger suckers for romance than me
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Rednecks
