Talkie Tuesday: The Longest Ride

Hello everyone!

Guess who's back from her vacation?

Well, technically I've been back since yesterday, but yesterday the only thing I was physically capable of doing was eating lunch and falling into bed. Border crossings are HORRIBLE here at this time of year, even though this is all supposed to be European Union territory and should therefore be painless. No such luck, I'm afraid, but at the very least I'm not rested enough - and my computer has updated enough - that I can get back into business! 

So before I left, my last blog post was about the Nicholas Sparks book, The Longest Ride, and I said in that post that I actually learned about it and got pulled into it by seeing the movie trailer. Before leaving, I made certain I had the movie with me so that I could watch and review it for you later on (aka right now as I'm typing this!).

And let me just say, it did not disappoint.

Now, usually with Sparks movies, it's either that the book is much better than the movie (like The Last Song or Safe Haven) or sometimes the movie can actually be better than the book (Dear John), though those are fairly rare. I was hesitant about this movie (and hopeful, but still hesitant) because I really liked the look of the trailer, and I loved the book, so it was a gamble.

It paid off.

Okay so, hands down, my initial interest was because of Scott Eastwood. I'm not even going to pretend that wasn't a major deciding factor for me to want to watch the movie. Okay? Okay.

He has big shoes to fill considering who his dad is, but I have to say it's looking good for Eastwood Jr. And he definitely looks good in a cowboy hat, too!

Britt Robertson, I've liked since Secret Circle, and since then I've sort of trailed her around a bit, but not as much as certain others, and I was pleasantly surprised with her peformance as well. It was refreshing to see a movie based pretty much solely on the two rising stars with no backup from the veterans, so to speak, and I can honestly say they pulled it off.

The sequence of events is a little bit different in the movie than it is in the books, since in the books, we have two different point of views, but in the movie, obviously, that's a little difficult to pull off. It begins with the injury Luke (Eastwood) suffers while riding one of the meanest bulls on the circuit, although we don't specifically see what happens. We time-jump to when Sophia's (Robertson) best friend Marcia (Melissa Benoist, to my delight) drags her along to a bull riding show, where she and Luke meet for the first time, and hit it off right from the get-go. Also note, there's no ex hovering about and that was a relief, all things considered - the Brian character was ANNOYING in the book.

They do go out to dinner (Luke prepares a picnin, cue the awws), but also agree that the timing is sort of bad considering the future is uncertain for both of them, and they sort of agree to go separate ways when they find Ira after he's had a car accident, and drive him to the ER.

That's where we get introduced to the second half of this story, as Sophia reads letters Ira wrote to his wife Ruth through the years, and we learn how they met before World War II broke out, how Ruth basically powered through to Ira, how she waited for him, his injury in the trenches and subsequent inability to have children which leads to a shot parting before Ruth once again puts her foot down. And then we learn about the art collection they gathered through the years of their marriage.

In the meantime, Luke and Sophia reconnect and begin a relationship, during which she meets his mother, goes to the ranch, learns how to ride horses and such, and you can clearly see they're really falling for each other hard.

Their first hurdle is during an art exhibit where Luke is pretty much bored, and doesn't have the right words to say, which leads to an argument, but they're willing to make it work, although on the next tight corner, just before Sophia is bound to leave for a very prestigious internship, Luke gets thrown by a bull and is injured again. At this point, Sophia lays down the line: she's willing to sacrifice a lot, but not to watch him kill himself, which is when they part ways and she seeks solace with Ira.

Ira then tells her about a difficult time in his and Ruth's life as well, during which they tried to adopt a student of Ruth's (who was a teacher) but it fell through and ended in their brief separation, though eventually they found their way back to each other.

The key point: love is sacrifice, but both people involved have to be willing to do it.

Ira passes away, and both Luke and Sophia receive an invitation to an art auction for the couple's private collection; Luke does in fact successfully ride Rango, but realizes, and tells Sophia as much as he appears at the auction, that it doesn't mean as much anymore without her there. Incidentally, he also buys the portrait of Ruth - and by doing so inherits the whole collection.

The movie ends with the resolution that Luke managed to save the family ranch (the reason why he had been riding in the first place) and keept it, while Sophia opened a museum for the paintings of the collection, and the two are happily in a relationship, keeping Ira's memory alive by the letters he wrote and probably through the lessons he taught them, as well.

Like I said before in the book review, I loved this story, mostly and probably because even though there is a death, it isn't the way Sparks usually depics it (as in, a shocking one), and the love story is fairly straightforward without too much hassle. It was easy on the eyes and on the mind, and even with the differences (no ex, not much Marcia, a difference in the wounds and injuries) it was still worth the watch, and I highly recommend it to all Nicholas Sparks fans out there!

And most of all, enjoy this, the longest ride of all - life.

xoxo

*images not mine