The Last Song (2010)
Directed by Julie Anne Robinson
A drama centered on a rebellious girl who is sent to a Southern beach town for the summer to stay with her father. Through their mutual love of music, the estranged duo learn to reconnect.
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15 films that influenced The Last Song
What critics say influenced The Last Song
Clearly designed as a vehicle to take ‘tween idol Cyrus into the next phase of her career, Sparks latest saga (published just a year ago) is likely too PG homogenized to do for her what Elia Kazan’s seminal 1961 teen drama Splendor In The Grass did for Natalie Wood (a few years older than Miley then)—if that’s the idea—but it still remains a touching tale of family ties and young summer love.
A clumsy, shallow cross between 1988's "Beaches" and 2000's " Here on Earth "?both infinitely superior films?it's all so mechanically telegraphed here that there isn't an honest or touching moment to be found.
With “The Notebook,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “Message in a Bottle,” “A Walk to Remember,” and the recent “Dear John,” Sparks has hit pay dirt, and it’s hard to blame the guy for essentially recycling the same elements of romance and doomsday to make millions from readers all over the world.
Just like "The Notebook," "Message in a Bottle" and every other Sparks adaptation, "The Last Song" hews closely enough to the Sparks pattern of romance and bathos that tears will flow as copiously in the audience as they do on screen.
Author-turned-screenwriter Nicholas Sparks tailor-made "The Last Song" for Miley Cyrus (2009's " Hannah Montana: The Movie "), who was looking to branch out from her Disney Channel roots and tackle a dramatic feature along the lines of 2002's " A Walk to Remember ."
Critics eager to tear into THE LAST SONG, yet another three-hanky picture based on the works of “A Walk to Remember,” “The Notebook” and “Dear John” author Nicholas Sparks, ought to take a look at film history.
Still, it's not likely that "The Last Song" will do for Miley's dramatic career what Sparks' "A Walk to Remember" did for teen pop star turned actress Mandy Moore in 2002.
So Ronnie is some kind of psychotic amalgam of what might have passed for "the bad kid" back in 1962 with the the mores and edginess of 2009, almost like Sparks looked at the inane mash-up for the 1950s and 1990s in the woebegone film version of A Walk to Remember , and thought it looked absolutely great, and he should do one of his own just like it.
With “The Notebook,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “Message in a Bottle,” “A Walk to Remember,” and the recent “Dear John,” Sparks has hit pay dirt, and it’s hard to blame the guy for essentially recycling the same elements of romance and doomsday to make millions from readers all over the world.
I know that worked in " A Walk to Remember ," but I'm not pulling a Mandy Moore here.
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With “The Notebook,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “Message in a Bottle,” “A Walk to Remember,” and the recent “Dear John,” Sparks has hit pay dirt, and it’s hard to blame the guy for essentially recycling the same elements of romance and doomsday to make millions from readers all over the world.
Playing to a natural glumness that passes for Deep Feelings, she takes the part of rebellious Ronnie Miller in this adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' ( "Nights in Rodanthe" ) book by him and debuting screenwriter Jeff Van Wie about a first heartbreak brought about by a nasty rebellious attitude and sour rejection of all in her path.
With "The Last Song," Sparks - the bestselling novelist whose books, including "The Notebook," "Nights in Rodanthe" and, most recently, "Dear John" have become Hollywood's go-to source for soapy melodrama - sticks to the formula that got him this far: a tale brimming with secrets, lies, regret, longing, misunderstandings, heartbreak, reconciliation, romance set to an obligatory musical montage, the inevitable subplot involving a building in need of construction, all played out in a gorgeous Southern coastal community (this time, it's Georgia's Tybee Island) populated by mostly gorgeous citizens.
His other tearjerking adaptations (The Notebook, A Walk To Remember, Nights In Rodanthe, Dear John) have experienced varying degrees of success, but The Last Song is bound to be a box office hit, due to the popularity of its young star, tween sensation Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana).
A clumsy, shallow cross between 1988's "Beaches" and 2000's " Here on Earth "?both infinitely superior films?it's all so mechanically telegraphed here that there isn't an honest or touching moment to be found.
Critics eager to tear into THE LAST SONG, yet another three-hanky picture based on the works of “A Walk to Remember,” “The Notebook” and “Dear John” author Nicholas Sparks, ought to take a look at film history.
He's the novelist/screenwriter who has given us "The Notebook" and "Dear John," among others.
Dear John, The Notebook and Nights in Rodanthe are examples of his familiarity with the workings of the tear duct.
With “The Notebook,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “Message in a Bottle,” “A Walk to Remember,” and the recent “Dear John,” Sparks has hit pay dirt, and it’s hard to blame the guy for essentially recycling the same elements of romance and doomsday to make millions from readers all over the world.
It's the worst of both worlds as Disney cash cow Miley Cyrus makes the most dubious "dramatic" debut of any singer since Britney Spears in "The Last Song" -- a risible Nicholas Sparks tear-jerker that makes the recent, similar film derived from Sparks' "Dear John" look like "The Notebook" by comparison.
It's about on a par with the Mandy Moore starring "A Walk to Remember" ("The Notebook," of course, retains the crown), which is the movie Cyrus cited as the type she wanted to be in.
He can definitely become a star, but it may be in the Peter O'Toole tradition; I can more easily imagine him in a remake of " Lawrence of Arabia " than as a settled spouse in a domestic drama.
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We're revisiting that teen movie shrine, A Summer Place, where the sea glitters and first kisses are exchanged on balmy evenings amid lengthening shadows.
Meanwhile, Kelly Preston (2009's " Old Dogs ") shows up for only a couple of days' work as mother Kim and gets out while the getting is good.
The sullen seventeen year-old isn't happy when her mom (Kelly Preston, "Old Dogs") drops her and little bro' Jonah (Bobby Coleman, "Martian Child," perhaps cast as a 'lip match' to Miley) off to spend the summer with their dad (Greg Kinnear) at his home on a Georgia beach.