Hello everyone!
So, hi, this is your friendly neighbourhood blogger, and from time to time she feels like destroying herself with Nicholas Sparks. Yup, that's about right. See, we all know that Mr. Sparks is a master of writing tragedy into his romance novels (let's just look at The Notebook or Message in a Bottle, shall we?), and I honestly don't know why I even read his books and/or watch his movie adaptations, but there you have it, apparently I need to kill myself emotionally from time to time. I think people might call me certifiable for this - I know my sister probably does, but what can you do?
For some reason, that's just something I feel like doing, and most recently, I've been tracking his newer works; I'm gearing up to read The Longest Ride before it hits theatres as a movie adaptation, but first, I went for The Best of Me. Sad fact: the movie should have originally featured Paul Walker in the main male role, but unfortunately, the role had to be recast after the actor's passing, and it went to James Marsden (which, all in all, wasn't such a bad choice, because he's quite good to look at too! Ahem).
So. The movie stars James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan in the titular roles of Dawson Cole and Amanda Collier (I didn't note down her husband's surname, unfortunately, so let's go with her maiden one). Our story begins on an oil rig where Dawson works, and a big explosion shakes it, tossing him into the sea. Miraculously, he survives, against all odds, and soon after gets a call from his hometown: the man who had taken him in when he was a teenager, Tuck, is dead, and Dawson should come home for the funeral. On the other side of the spectrum we have Amanda, who is married, living in a lavish home with her son and husband, but clearly unhappy. She, too, receives the call.
The pair doesn't know the other is coming, however, until they meet at Tuck's house, where it quickly becomes evident there's a whole lot of history between them. And I mean, it's a Sparks thing. Of course there is.
In flashbacks, we learn about them during high school, when Amanda was infatuated with Dawson (going so far as to detach her battery cable so her car supposedly 'dies' and he needs to help her out) and pretty much taught him everything about flirting and girls. They're actually really cute as teenagers despite the fact that he comes from an abusive, criminal family, and she's high society, meaning it's a star-crossed lovers kind of thing, but they're making it work, despite threats from his father and cousins, her father trying to buy him off, that sort of thing. But we also learn, as they intersect with the current timeline, that something bad had to have happened since, obviously, Amanda and Dawson are NOT currently a thing.
In present day, they take Tuck's ashes to scatter them in the fields around his cottage in a different town, and they reminisce ... and end up in bed together (naturally; between how good Amanda looks for a forty year old woman and Dawson for a guy who roughed it since leaving town, it's a DUH moment). And things look to be turning out okay ... but, you know, Sparks.
Thing is, Dawson's family went after Tuck one time, right before prom, and Dawson came back with his cousin Bobby, got enraged, and went after his dad. In the struggle, the gun he'd taken went off, accidentally killing Bobby instead. Dawson went to prison (and testified to put his father and two cousins in there, too; as well as sending money to Bobby's pregnant girlfriend and then later on to help her with the child and all), and pushed Amanda away, refusing to see her, so she would live her life and not wait for him (even though she was willing to wait). This resulted in her current unhappy marriage, with one child dead of leukemia and a drunk for a husband, and she tells Dawson she wanted to share everything that had happened with him, not with her husband. So they're pretty much all set to get their happily ever after.
Again, Sparks.
Amanda goes home, and gets the call that her son, Jared, was in a car accident, and needs a heart transplant. AND IF YOU'VE READ/SEEN ANYTHING SPARKS BEFORE YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
Dawson gets attacked by two of his cousins, trying to push his car under a train, but he overpowers them - only to get shot by his own father (although, anyone skilled in medicine needs to explain to me how someone can die from a shot through the right collarbone, I mean, die instantly that is ... it's confusing, but I suppose it's possible). His heart is then transported, since he was an organ donor, and Jared ends up with it, though Amanda doesn't learn about it until a year has passed and she's divorced, gone back to school, and working with a children's fund.
OKAY.
Talk about emotion. But that's what a Sparks work does to you. There were big differences from the novel (no ghost leading Dawson around, no doctor he killed by accident, his cousins had a much smaller role in the movie and they weren't as dangerous or psychotic, and Tuck was a whole lot friendlier, too), but they didn't take away from the storyline itself. The abuse thing was difficult for me to watch because of obvious reasons, but the acting was beautifully delivered, and James Marsden looks good, very good.
Bottom line, however: star-crossed lovers, agree to somehow make everything work, one of them dies.
xx
*none of the images are mine
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