Dear John (2010)
Directed by Lasse Hallström
While Sergeant John Tyree is home on two weeks leave from Germany, he meets Savannah after he dives into the ocean to retrieve Savannah's purse that had fallen off a pier. John eventually falls in love with Savannah, who promises to write to him until he returns from overseas.
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21 films that influenced Dear John
What critics say influenced Dear John
But rather than present a more realistic side of life and love, Sparks, who still dresses his stories in the same saccharine garments as the more conventional tales they resemble, has elevated a reclusive genre that can only be dubbed “tragedy porn,” popularized by such films as Love Story, Terms of Endearment and Beaches—a perverted simile every bit as unrealistic and twice as cruel.
All of these stages are part of Dear John, a drama directed by the inimitable Lasse Hallstrom ( My Life as A Dog , The Cider House Rules , Chocolat , An Unfinished Life , What's Eating Gilbert Grape ).
It's a disappointment coming from the Swedish filmmaker who's given us much better, particularly 1999's critically praised "The Cider House Rules," based on the John Irving novel and starring Tobey Maguire and Michael Caine, and his other Oscar-nominated film, "My Life as a Dog."
It’s surprisingly beside the point that the film is directed by Lasse Hallström, once the capable chaperone of “My Life as a Dog,’’ “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,’’ “Chocolat,’’ and “The Cider House Rules.’’
Director Lasse Hallström ("What's Eating Gilbert Grape," "The Cider House Rules," "My Life as a Dog") keeps things from getting too syrupy and Tatum and Seyfried have a sweet, easy connection.
And for Dear John, that task falls to Lasse Hallström, the once-great director of My Life As A Dog and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, who later settled into a career turning out polite, middlebrow prize-grubbers for the Weinstein brothers, like The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, and Casanova.
And devoted Sparks’ aficionados should know that director Lasse Hallstrom (“The Cider House Rules,” “My Life as a Dog,” “Chocolat,” “Casanova”) and cliché-prone screenwriter Jamie Linden take artistic liberties with the lovers’ ultimate fate, which differs from the book’s ending.
But judging from Seyfried's performance in "Dear John," she has a ways to go before achieving the status of the "Bull Durham" star (who has been relegated to not just mom but grandma roles, as in "The Lovely Bones").
Like the other Sparks adapted movies, Dear John is so old fashioned and it’s hyper romanticism such a rarity in cinemas these days it almost seems new again (there are heavy hints of Splendor in the Grass in the emotional journey the two leads endure).
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On the other hand, I don't suppose that even just two years later, anybody still cares, just like I probably hadn't thought about Lost in Space for the better part of a decade prior to researching this paragraph - truth be told, I thought that U.S. Marshals was the film to knock out Titanic , and I'll bet that's another movie that nobody has thought of since some time in 1999.
All of these stages are part of Dear John, a drama directed by the inimitable Lasse Hallstrom ( My Life as A Dog , The Cider House Rules , Chocolat , An Unfinished Life , What's Eating Gilbert Grape ).
It's a disappointment coming from the Swedish filmmaker who's given us much better, particularly 1999's critically praised "The Cider House Rules," based on the John Irving novel and starring Tobey Maguire and Michael Caine, and his other Oscar-nominated film, "My Life as a Dog."
This one, at least, comes from not-always-corny director Lasse Hallström (“The Cider House Rules”) and stars two legitimate up-and-comers.
He left the 90's with a literary adaptation, John Irving's "The Cider House Rules," but began the 2000's with the far less successful adaptation, "The Shipping News."
It’s surprisingly beside the point that the film is directed by Lasse Hallström, once the capable chaperone of “My Life as a Dog,’’ “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,’’ “Chocolat,’’ and “The Cider House Rules.’’
Director Lasse Hallström ("What's Eating Gilbert Grape," "The Cider House Rules," "My Life as a Dog") keeps things from getting too syrupy and Tatum and Seyfried have a sweet, easy connection.
All of these stages are part of Dear John, a drama directed by the inimitable Lasse Hallstrom ( My Life as A Dog , The Cider House Rules , Chocolat , An Unfinished Life , What's Eating Gilbert Grape ).
It’s surprisingly beside the point that the film is directed by Lasse Hallström, once the capable chaperone of “My Life as a Dog,’’ “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,’’ “Chocolat,’’ and “The Cider House Rules.’’
Director Lasse Hallström ("What's Eating Gilbert Grape," "The Cider House Rules," "My Life as a Dog") keeps things from getting too syrupy and Tatum and Seyfried have a sweet, easy connection.
And for Dear John, that task falls to Lasse Hallström, the once-great director of My Life As A Dog and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, who later settled into a career turning out polite, middlebrow prize-grubbers for the Weinstein brothers, like The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, and Casanova.
Working from a screenplay by Jamie Linden, director Lasse Hallstrom ("What's Eating Gilbert Grape") delivers a film that has its moments but comes across as far more formulaic than it needs to be.
His "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" is one of the more heartwrenching films about family and the desire to leave your hometown.
In the reliably moist novels of Nicholas Sparks - The Notebook and Message in a Bottle - life is a beach, love shifts like a sand castle in a storm, and lovers don't know what they've got till it's gone.
Based on yet another Nicholas Sparks bestselling romance, the author who gave us "The Notebook" and "Message in a Bottle" (what is it with this guy and paper?), the story begins with a chance encounter on a South Carolina beach sometime in the late '90s when a handsome stranger, John, jumps off a pier to save a . . .
The buzz: If you love nothing but action movies, dramas based on Nicholas Sparks books (“The Notebook,” “Nights in Rodanthe”) probably aren’t for you.
Call this one "The Notebook" with 9/11, autism and less passion.
But if you’ve seen any other big-screen adaptations of Sparks’s novels - “Message in a Bottle,’’ “A Walk to Remember,’’ “The Notebook,’’ “Nights in Rodanthe’’ - you won’t be too shocked by the road “Dear John’’ travels, or where it winds up.
This time, the author of "The Notebook," "Message in a Bottle," "Nights in Rodanthe," "A Walk to Remember" and this spring's "The Last Song" (starring Miley Cyrus) gives us John (Channing Tatum) and Savannah (Amanda Seyfried of "Mamma Mia!" and "Big Love").
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The buzz: If you love nothing but action movies, dramas based on Nicholas Sparks books (“The Notebook,” “Nights in Rodanthe”) probably aren’t for you.
All one has to be is familiar with other adaptations of Sparks' oeuvre - "Message in a Bottle" (letters, the ocean, death), "A Walk to Remember" (young love, a single dad, cancer), "The Notebook" (poor troubled young man and young woman with wealthy parents, young love separated by a second man, house building) and even "Nights in Rodanthe" (letter writing, the ocean, death).
But if you’ve seen any other big-screen adaptations of Sparks’s novels - “Message in a Bottle,’’ “A Walk to Remember,’’ “The Notebook,’’ “Nights in Rodanthe’’ - you won’t be too shocked by the road “Dear John’’ travels, or where it winds up.
This time, the author of "The Notebook," "Message in a Bottle," "Nights in Rodanthe," "A Walk to Remember" and this spring's "The Last Song" (starring Miley Cyrus) gives us John (Channing Tatum) and Savannah (Amanda Seyfried of "Mamma Mia!" and "Big Love").
The author of the “The Notebook,” “Message in a Bottle,” and “Nights in Rodanthe” is notorious for his taste in romantic tragedy, which has gifted him a legion of devoted fans, but only a mediocre multiplex output.
But the flaccid backbone of the piece, the sappy story by Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook; Nights in Rodanthe), can't hold up the picture, which melts into a gooey, directionless puddle before the first reel is out.
Part of the problem is Channing Tatum, an actor with the strengths and faults of early Sylvester Stallone: He can be a charming palooka, as in Fighting and A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints, or a block of wood, albeit one carved by God’s hands.
My favorite Channing Tatum performance to date was the one he delivered in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints , but this one's actually pretty close to that level.