Dear John typical chick flick
Once again a love story from he who gave us A Walk to Remember and The Notebook is brought to the big screen. Nicholas Spark's novel Dear John was the inspiration behind this contemporary love story of star-crossed lovers separated by their different lives. Dear John is set in the spring of 2001 in sunny Carolina. It is on a beach where young college student Savannah Cutis (Amanda Seyfried) meets handsome soldier John Tyree (Channing Tatum) and the two fall almost immediately in love.
Like many of Spark's novels the plot is heartbreakingly romantic but there were aspects of the film that stood out as unusual. Most prominent was the depth in Savannah and John's characters. The two chose to remain true to each other through writing letters for 12 months until John's enlistment in the army special forces is complete. Plain and simple, there was a lack of chemistry between Seyfried and Tatum that made this romance somewhat unbelievable.
The plot really gets going when the events of 9/11 occur and send the long-distance lovers on an emotional journey testing their devotion to one another. John is torn between fighting for his country that he loves and seeing the girl he loves. Savannah is stuck at home aching to see John again. The film also takes time to touch on Autism which John's father (played by Richard Jenkins) appears to suffer from. This issue brings the two closer in understanding the disease and why the elder Tyree is the way he is, but this is not the focal point of the film. All in all the movie is full of choices and situations that one might empathize with, but I think director Lasse Hallstrom could have brought a lot more out of his cast so as to make the audience feel more in the end.
