Dear John (2010) – on rental. The other romantic drama to arrive while I was away was Dear John, a film starring Channing Tatum, the beefcake previously seen in G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and up and coming young actress Amanda Seyfried.
The film is an adaptation of a book of the same name by Nicholas Sparks, though Internet pundits are saying is only a ‘loose’ adaptation. Still, that it’s supposedly coming (somewhat at least) from Sparks’ material should immediately tell you loads about what the film involves: tragedy, love, and lots of kleenex. Tatum plays John, a serving member of a ‘Special Forces’ unit with the US Army, who’s on vacation leave. He meets Savannah, a college student on spring break. The two hit off immediately, and within the short fortnight of leave, fall in love. John returns to active service for a year, and the two begin a long correspondence of letters to each other.
I’m pretty familiar with the film’s context to be sure. Our courtship days were mostly via long-distance, and communication for at least 80% off the time I knew Ling prior to our marital engagement. We were all on MSN, emails and phone-calls. In fact, we became a ‘success’ story for a certain Government social agency’s portal here, and the published interview we had was centered on debunking two popular theories: firstly that long-distance relationships don’t work, and secondly that it’s madness to be in a relationship with someone doing a Ph.D.
I expect films based on Sparks’ material to be manipulative. In all the film adaptations of his books, you routinely get the whole machinery working in overdrive to elicit “awwwws” and tears from you: the music, the virtuous characters in difficult situations, dialog, and the story situations and setups.
However, even allowing for lots of compensation for the way the film tries to get those specific reactions from you, the film’s just not very good in so many other respects. The most serious one: the major plot point which sets up conflict between Savannah and John – specifically that Savannah leaves John for someone else – and the tone for the last one third of the film is based off an off-camera action that isn’t just poorly related in dialog, but it’s absurd to begin with as there was very little material in the film earlier on to establish a significant possibility of that action happening to begin with.
And while the film’s outdoor locations of South Carolina are lovely in Spring, the numerous scenes depicting John “at work” and at war are terrible. Specifically, they look utterly fake and even more low-budget than current TV productions based on war themes. Ok, so some of us who aren’t as interested in battle scenes can’t tell or won’t mind. But trust me when I say this: if a major story point in your film is about the long physical distances separating your couple in love, not putting enough effort to dress up those far flung locations so that they don’t look like your neighboring film lots isn’t going to do you any favors.
As for the acting… oh the horror. As impossible as this might sound, Keanu Reeves has a new rival when it comes to playing wood. Tatum’s great when it comes to physical roles, but expecting him to play dramatic leads like in Dear John is just too much for the actor. Seyfried fares slightly better with those huge expressive eyes of hers but she’s got loads of bad dialog to utter out still.
On balance; this film will work for the ardent fans of films based on Sparks’ books. If you don’t mind the terrible dialog and acting performances, the film does succeed in pulling those heartstrings. To this end, I don’t think it’s a total loss.
Recent comments