Dear John

Another failure to adept Nicholas Sparks’ Novels


The Story:

John (Channing Tatum) is a soldier having his two weeks leave in his hometown, where he met Savannah (Amanda Seyfried), a college student visiting the town.

Although love was unexpected, it doesn’t mean they didn’t find it. With the knowledge of John having to leave for the army, their love still lives. While John is on duty, they keep writing letter to each other and maintain their feeling.

But when the 9/11 attack occurred, John has to re-enlist for at least another two years, and they have to be separated longer. Troubles invade and their love put on hold. One cannot bear it anymore; can the other?


Release Date: February 5, 2010 (wide)

Distributor: Screen Gems

Directed by: Lasse Hallström (Chocolat, The Shipping News, Casanova, The Hoax, Hachiko: A Dog’s Story)

Starring: Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried, Henry Thomas, Scott Porter, Richard Jenkins

Budget: $25,000,000

Gross Revenue: $112,076,256 (worldwide), $80,014,842 (US)

Review:

There are many Nicholas Sparks’ novels that have been adapted to film, but only two deserve a credit, Message in A Bottle and The Notebook.

Watching movies and reading novels are a very different experiences. In a novel, our imaginations are set free, we can interpret the author’s writing in any way that we love. And when the director of a movie can’t interpret the movie the way we thought, the result is a wreck. Hence, Dear John following the footsteps of A Walk to Remember and Nights in Rodanthe as a failure to adept Sparks’ works.

The plot began when a soldier named John met a college girl named Amanda in his leave from duty. Apparently it only take a few moments for both of them to fall in love with each other. Unfortunately, John only two weeks in the town and have to get back to serve.

They have to split up for a year before John will be back for good. While being apart, they keeping contact with each other by writing letter. Trouble comes when 9/11 event takes place, John and his team choose to re-enlist for another two years. Can the couple that only been together for two weeks keep their feeling for another two years only by reading a handwriting note sent by each other?

In the first part of the movie, where John and Amanda spent their two weeks together, it was actually kinda sweet and romantic. We can see their connection and chemistry, and all of those first love experiences. Although, Channing Tatum was a little bit rigid in playing John’s character.

Now, the core part of the movie poses the bigger problem. The lovers were apart by distances, and keep in touch by sending a letter to each other. The letters should be meaningful and can shed the tears of the audiences. Instead, they were nothing, basically what they wrote in those letters were just “How are you?” and “I miss you”. No stories about how they holding on, or what they’re doing in all those times apart.

Well, if their letters only like that, no wonder their relationship won’t last, and that’s exactly what happened. In this point of the movie, the story completely focused on John. Again, being the one who dumped, there were no telling on how John managed to live without Amanda. The plot just keep jumping to the future, until John finally has to come back to his town.

The ending, although not a complete disappointment, has passed the climax, and rather flat (well, it was assumed that you can keep your eyes open to see the ending ).

One thing that can I can kept remembering from this movie, is what John and Amanda used to say when they were gonna parted, “I’ll see you soon, then….”


My Rating: C

IMDb user rating: 5.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: 28%

Metacritic: 43/100

Yahoo! critics: C

Yahoo! users: B+

Your rating: (2 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
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