Boredom, he wrote

Dear John
DIRECTED BY: Lasse
Hallstrom
STARRING: Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried, Richard Jenkins, Henry Thomas
CERT: 12A

Nicholas Sparks deserves all the flak he gets for his dumb books. I’ve just finished reading Dear John and I find myself pondering on the words of Jesus ­ who commanded his disciples to gouge out their right eye if it caused them to sin.
Both of mine have led me to a very dark place indeed and to guard my poor soul against any such grievous offence in the future, it may be best to follow the good Lord’s advice and dig them out with a fork. And volunteer for a lobotomy as well, just to be sure.
Movies based on Sparks’ books are another thing though – where a talented cast and crew have occasionally been able to drag some semblance of art and entertainment from the terrible pages. Kevin Costner, Robin Wright Penn and Paul Newman breathed fine life into Message In A Bottle. And, despite the ridicule it still gets, Nick Cassavetes’ The Notebook was a very good film ­ with great performances from James Garner, Joan Allen, Rachel McAdams and the always excellent Ryan Gosling.
So sometimes the movie really is better than the book. Of course, sometimes even the best of minds are defeated by the sheer brutal banality of the Sparks’ pen. They surrender, crying, “I did the best I could! It’s Nicholas Sparks, for God’s sake! I can’t perform miracles!”
And so, despite the talent and despite the best of intentions, the moviemakers succeed only in adding one more bad thing to a world of bad things.
Such was the case with Nights In Rodanthe, starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane. The same was true of A Walk To Remember, despite the presence of Daryl Hannah and the great Peter Coyote. Unfortunately this is also the case with Dear John ­ where the gifted director Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules, Chocolat) and his fine and likeable cast have been unable to craft anything resembling a purse from that big pig’s ear of a book.
Channing Tatum is surly Special Forces knucklehead John Tyree, catching a few waves while home on leave on the Carolina coast. Here he rescues a poor drowning handbag, dropped off a pier by the lovely and wholesome Savannah (Seyfried), who’s down at the beach with some mission friends, building homes for the poor.
Well, the beautiful strangers charm each other and fall in love. Before long, however, it’s time for knucklehead to ship back overseas on duty and the two embark on that dreaded thing – the long distance relationship. Which is where it all gets a tad stupid ­ because unlike, say, normal people, John and Savannah do not call, text, or email. Oh no.
Ignoring some of the most important and convenient developments in human communications since the invention of writing or shouting into a upside-down wizard’s hat, they choose only to write love letters to each other.
But somehow they manage to keep the romance smouldering just nicely, counting down the days until John comes home for good. Ah, but then the world conspires against them on 9/11 and, in a fit of star-spangled patriotism, our man re-enlists to serve his country ­ putting eternal love in jeopardy, as you might just have gathered from the title.
As in the book, the most interesting thread in the film’s plot concerns John’s relationship with his father, played superbly by Richard Jenkins. A quiet man with unchanging routines, he obsesses over his coin collection but seems unable to communicate with his son ­ much to John’s frustration, until he learns that his dad may be autistic.
It’s something that Hallstrom could have taken and run with, like filling in some back-story on why it is that John was raised only by his dad. In one of the few pages worth printing, Sparks’ description of how John’s parents might have met and why eventually they may have parted, is genuinely heartbreaking.
But the director doesn’t dwell long enough on such things. Instead he concerns himself with the dull, moping couple and their considerably passionless love affair. And though Tatum and Seyfried are a talented pair of actors, they’re never convincing as a couple in love and there isn’t the hint of a spark between them.
With this kind of material before them, it’s possible they were just too horrified to muster the chemistry. Or maybe they couldn’t be bothered. And I don’t blame them.
On the plus side, the film does look great and the Carolinas make a lovely backdrop as always. Just a shame the view is spoilt by the story.