Valentine’s Marathon: Safe Haven (2013)

Happy Valentine’s Day, my friends! I hope that you’ve found some plans to share with your loved ones whether it be spouses, partners, boyfriend/girlfriend or even best friends.  Its really about celebrating love, right? Hey, I have a date with my oven and baking supplies and my TV and stack of rom-coms.  Oh, wait, you meant a living thing? My little cat is my date tonight 🙂

From the beginning of February till now, I’ve spent two weeks watching a few others but mostly focused on the Nicholas Sparks marathon.  We’ve finally reached the last one and his most recent adaptation from his novel, Safe Haven.  I read one review back then that revealed the twist so I already know that going in.  Either way, I didn’t even remember much of the plot and I never read the book.  Honestly, I was near finishing the last season of Gossip Girl and I almost didn’t even watch this, but I did because I like to wrap things up nicely 🙂 Lets check it out, shall we?

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Josh Duhamel, Julianne Hough, Cobie Smulders, David Lyons, Noah Lomax, Mimi Kirkland

Katie (Julianne Hough) runs away from her home in panic, jumps on a bus evading the police and ends up in South Port.  There she meets the widowed father, Alex (Josh Duhamel) who runs a gas station/corner store.  She watches as he tries his best to keep his family moving forward while trying to move on from losing his precious wife to cancer. After Katie settles in at the local restaurant and slowly adapts to this new secluded and slower lifestyle, she also starts getting closer to Alex and his family.  At the same time, she builds a relationship with another nearby neighbor Jo (Cobie Smulders) who helps her sort out her feelings.  But when her past starts chasing after her, she is threatened to leave South Port and the people that she has learned to love and appreciate and she also may lose the only safe place that she has finally found.

I went into this marathon somewhat dreading it and honestly, other than a few road bumps in the middle, I’m glad that I found and bought Safe Haven. I mean, I knew the twist and maybe you know it, heard of it or just don’t care or you’d like to find out so I kept that hidden.  Its somewhat silly in a way but then would it be such a bad idea if that actually happened? I don’t think so.  I’d like to think that I could do that also if it ever happened.  Safe Haven may be pretty much hated by a lot of people and if its anything I’ve learned from this marathon, a lot of people are just not fans.  It suffers from being formulaic and attempts to manipulate our emotions but I mean, isn’t that what romance movies usually do? Anyways, I’ve accepted it.  As long as its within reasonable tolerable levels for me, I can deal with it. With that said, Safe Haven really does give a solid love story.  Maybe one of the few where I bought a lot of it.  Sure, there’s things that don’t make sense here and there but its a romance, ok? Love doesn’t have to make sense.

We are grow from pain and we move forward and we have to have the courage the better and the good that happens to us. Sure, it doesn’t evolve at the pace of Nicholas Sparks novels but sometimes, maybe it does. I’m not a love expert.  Either way, point being these two characters here Alex and Katie are played by Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough respectively.  I don’t know much of what they did and they’ve never impressed me much, so I didn’t really care much but I think I just fell a little more in love with Josh Duhamel after this movie.  Plus, I take back all the chemistry comments about the previous movies in the Sparks marathon (except A Walk to Remember) because these two are awesome.  I think its because of the chemistry and more slowly developed relationship due to the kids involvement, it turns into some sweet.  Its two people trying to move forward slowly from their pain and trust and love each other. I guess it resounds to me because feeling safe is really an issue for me and when I found it, its quite inexplicable and thats how I felt about that here.

What I really liked about this is that one also is that its not just a love story and then a little climax with whatever was going on, a death or a loss or whatnot, this time there’s a physical shift to the cop chasing down Katie and how he inches closer and flashbacks of why she had to leave.  It reveals who she truly is, whether she’s good or bad. It adds a bit more of a complex situation and because the cop (played by David Lyons and shown up there)  turns out to be more and he’s expands on the set of problems already, it adds a bit of intensity.  Its a nice up in pace after watching the previous ones.  The feeling is a tad different as well and honestly, as a movie, its more well-rounded than I’d have imagined.

Overall, I enjoyed this one.  Julianne Hough does good and Josh Duhamel is charming as hell.  I just actually realized it.  They have really good chemistry which makes a good part of a romance.  The supporting characters add positively to the script.  The twist might turn some off but I felt like it was a nice idea.  The movie itself gave me a feeling of freedom and the comfort of finding safety and feeling secure.  All this had some pretty lighthearted music when they were in South Port.  Honestly, it had a feel good factor and hints of intensity and changed the pace from an expected Nicholas Sparks adaptation.  I was happy with it overall.

I’m sure there’s some epic Oscar nominated or winner romance that will beat this and you know before you walk into this one, its not going to be one of those so you just need to go in with an open heart and enjoy what it offers if you’re into romance of course.  I’m saying right now, Nicholas Sparks is really meant for those full-on romantic at heart (which I am because I like corny and mushy romance-y things).  If you know you’re more the realistic lover, well, this is not your thing.

What did you think of Safe Haven? What are your thoughts on Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough? Are there movies of theirs that you like? 

I’m a bit behind schedule with today’s posts but I promise another post this evening.  I do want to get a special post out but I’m having some technical difficulties and can only deal with it after work so I’m looking for an alternative right now 🙂

Valentine’s Marathon: Dear John (2010)

If I had to choose my top novels of Nicholas Sparks that I enjoyed, I’d have to say that Dear John is one of them.  The story is really good and there’s so much awesomeness in just love, war, family, long distance relationship and all that stuff.  It was nothing like a tearjerker like A Walk to Remember but it was one that I really enjoyed.  That novel came to my attention because it was adapted into a movie and I read it and then waited to watch the movie.  This is my second viewing of it.

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried, Richard Jenkins, Henry Thomas

John (Channing Tatum) is  home on leave from the military and after one of his surfs and walking on the pier, he notices a girl that accidentally drops her purse into the water. Without hesitation, he jumps in to retrieve it for her.  This girl, Savannah (Amanda Seyfriend), is there for the summer with her parents.  Savannah turns out to be a conservative good girl who seems to have no flaws and they start dating.  When his leave ends, it is also time for Savannah to go back to school but they decide to keep their relationship for the following year as John will be home for good then.  They decide to keep in contact through mail to sustain their relationship. When a year comes up and John decides to re-sign for longer due to the 9/11 attacks back home, can their love endure it?

Back when this movie first came out, the only reason I wanted to see it was because I like Amanda Seyfried.  I still do, not so much of a girl crush anymore than before but why not Channing Tatum? Well, he was always pegged for roles like this.  Not a lot of emotions and reserved in his feelings and always some form of military or whatnot.  I think watching this changed my mind a little because at least it was better than GI Joe and I didn’t fall asleep.  Plus, I already told you that I loved the story.  That was my thing back then, liking the intensity of long distance relationship.  As I write this, I really am thinking of rereading this one.  I forgot how awesome it was and the ending is just so…bittersweet in a way.  The choices, the timing, the waiting and the giving up…but then there’s so much more because the girl in Nicholas Sparks novels always helps enlighten the guy in some way and with this one is one bringing back the life to John’s relationship with his dad.

That scene up there is my favorite part of the novel that they somewhat toned down a little for the movie.  Still, I love it quite a bit.  Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried has some pretty good chemistry and there are some pretty sweet moments. Of course it uses the same formula as always but the story is one I like and honestly, I felt like Channing Tatum fell perfectly into this role and he gave this movie life.  It may not be his character John’s relationship with Savannah that made this movie memorable but rather, I was truly moved by his relationship with his father, portrayed by Richard Jenkins.  The father and son story here shines through so much. After so many of these, I’m starting to think that maybe Nicholas Sparks should change his romance career and just go for family drama.  Could work, no? 😉 Back on track, Richard Jenkins is amazing.  I haven’t seen him do a lot of main leads but he is a kickass supporting role all the time and he just always acts out everything so well.

Dear John has its flaws and it follows the same little bits of Nicholas Sparks novels but its all in whether you buy the premise.  For me, my love for the novel actually made me like this a bit more than the majority of people.  Plus, this was the role that made me feel like Channing Tatum was doing great for the first time,but that was until I saw Magic Mike which broke him out of his same roles and he started having a variety of them.   Its a bittersweet ending and I love reading about being put in situations to make choices because thats what life is about, right? You make choices and you have to take on the challenges and consequences that come with them. I’ll end it here before I get all philosophical. If you don’t see the movie, read the book. I’ll work on rereading that this year 🙂 Still, I don’t really think it was all that bad, just depends if you like this sort of premise.

These reviews are turning more into write-ups about a ramble of thoughts combined together…don’t you think?

Have you seen Dear John? What are your thoughts on Channing Tatum and/or Amanda Seyfried?

By the way, I’m really trying to finish up Nicholas Sparks by Valentine’s Day so I’ve been on overtime watching these, hopefully with maybe one day of double reviews, I’ll manage to sneak them all in 🙂