Movie Review: “Dear John”

Seen on: January 28, 2010

The players: Director: Lasse Hallstrom, Writer: Jamie Linden, Cast: Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried, Richard Jenkins, Henry Thomas

Facts of interest: Based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks.

The plot: A solider falls in love with a girl while he's on leave, and they two enter a turbulent long-distance relationship.

Our thoughts: Ready for some hardcore, over-the-top drama that requires strong nerves and a bunch of patience to sit through? If that answer’s yes, make sure you don’t miss Lasse Hallstrom’s “Dear John,” a flat, through and through cheesy and yet partly entertaining big-screen adaptation of yet another Nicholas Sparks novel.

“The Notebook” set the bar pretty high when it comes to the screen versions of Sparks’ works, and neither the recent “Nights in Rodanthe” nor “Dear John” boast the same emotional softness and depth than the popular 2004 hit starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling. “John” in particular, takes things a tad too far.

Channing Tatum plays John Tyree, a committed soldier who’s enjoying himself surfing in South Carolina while he’s on leave. One day he meets the beautiful Savannah (Amanda Seyfried), and just two weeks later, the two are exchanging passionate kisses. John has to return to duty shortly after, and the drama begins…

Because John and Savannah are apparently madly in love, they decide to try out the long-distance relationship thingy and overcome their time apart by writing each other tons of love letters – John when he’s not in the middle of combat, and Savannah in between classes and when she’s not hanging out with her friends.

Everything works well for a while and the two young lovers are both looking forward to the end of John’s tour, but when the terrorist attacks strike New York City in September 2001, everything changes. Torn between the love for his country and for Savannah, he must soon make a decision that will forever change his life.

Despite all the problems I have with “Dear John,” let me point out that this is not a boring film. The pace of the plot keeps moving along steadily without slowing down too much necessarily, and the film’s visual quality as well as a handful of decent acting performances give it the punch it requires to come across as entertaining.

What bothered me in this movie is the direction the story is heading into after John heads back to war and things start to get complicated in his fresh romantic relationship with Savannah. Watching two people being separated by war can indeed be heartbreaking, but in “Dear John,” schmaltz takes over real emotion.

In short, the film’s second act is just overloaded with tragic events putting a serious strain on our protagonists’ relationship. In fact, it all reaches a point where the melodramatic aspects of the story just ruin every hope for the film to pull itself together and focus on the development of its more or less interesting characters.

I haven’t read the book and can’t comment on how the story ends, but in the film, the last act boasts one of these overwhelmingly implausible twists that punched me right in the face and made it very hard for me to take anything I’ve seen in the movie seriously. There’s nothing about the film’s weird finale that kept me engaged.

Let’s talk chemistry. Although I feel Tatum and Seyfried deserved better characters, I admit I enjoyed watching them together onscreen. They are both talented actors with the ability to pull off solid performances, and the romance between John and Savannah is one thing they manage to portray authentically in this movie.

Let me also mention the appearance by Richard Jenkins, who plays John’s father, a reclusive man who spends most of his time with his giant collection of coins. His character also triggers an entire subplot in the film, and while the nature of it is certainly serious, I feel it’s been thrown in here solely to make things even more dramatic.

Freaky quote: "Two weeks. That's how long it took for me to fall for you." - Amanda Seyfried

The final word: “Dear John” will work for all the Tatum and Seyfriend fans, but I wonder how people who read the book will react to it. Overly saccharine and suffering from a bad finish, Hallstrom’s latest film is enjoyable to watch but becomes less and less credible as the story progresses. All I can say to wrap this up is: it is what it is…

Article by Franck Tabouring