Movie Review: The Best of Me

Make out scene in the rain? Check. Parents who disapprove of the boy from the wrong side of the tracks? Check. Boy from the wrong side of the tracks—who’s pretty hot? Check.

The Best of Me has all of that, so why isn’t it even half as good as The Notebook? The answer seems pretty simple: Nicholas Sparks is getting lazy. The man’s name may be associated with everyone's favorite Ryan Gosling romance, but he seems to have lost his touch.

I knew things were heading down hill with Dear John, but even the The Last Song hadn’t made me give up all hope. Then came The Lucky One, to which I was very forgiving because of a personal affinity for Zac Efron. But then with Safe Haven—despite my love for Josh Duhamel—it was clear that Sparks’ movies were missing that original spark. After not crying in both The Lucky One and Safe Haven, I didn’t have high expectations for The Best of Me. Not surprisingly, the movie didn’t deliver.

As much as I’d like to write it all off to the actors not being Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, I can’t. First of all, James Marsden is a perfectly fine romantic lead. 27 Dresses was a lot of fun. He was actually in The Notebook, which gives him some credit by association. He’s attractive, which is critical.

On the other hand, Michelle Monaghan, who plays his love interest, has a terribly sour face. As many times as she might be throwing out the word “love,” I was having a little trouble buying it. However, I moved on from that, convincing myself that if James Marsden’s character loves her, I could, too.

Maybe the flaws had to do with the plot. The Best of Me tells the story of two teenage lovers, Amanda and Dawson (played by Liana Liberato and Luke Bracey as youth, and Monaghan and Marsden as adults), who years later have the chance to rekindle their romance. Called back home to their small town by the death of a mutual friend, the two are forced to take a walk down memory lane. Laden with flashbacks, the film gives the audience a chance to see firsthand how the two fell in love and fell apart.

However, there is a giant issue with the fact that the younger versions of these characters look absolutely nothing like their older selves. It is so bad that the screenwriter probably should have written in some plastic surgery bit to help explain how basic facial structure could change so drastically. This makes it hard to get invested in this couple, when it really looks like I am watching a movie about two different couples.

Unfortunately, the faults are not just physical. In the same way that this review began with a checklist, I suspect the screenwriter had a nearly identical outline. So much of the film feels perfunctory, as if someone said for one segment, “OK, the dad needs to disapprove the boyfriend, which will make the boy rethink the relationship—if he’s good enough and all that—and that will cause some drama.” That situation does happen, and afterward Dawson goes and broods on a water tower. But Amanda knows him, so she knows where to find him and she knows just what he’s thinking. So she says something to the effect of “You stop it” and he says something to the effect of “OK.” That’s about as deep as we really get with these two. All the development, both emotional and character, feels unbelievably superficial. This superficiality can also be seen in the way Dawson is portrayed as "an intellectual," which literally stems from him reading a book by Stephen Hawking in the first five minutes of the film.