The Best of Me: Movie Review

I have joked in the past about if you have seen one film adapted from a Nicholas Sparks film, then you have seen them all. Although I have actually enjoyed a few like “A Walk to Remember” and “The Lucky One”, most of these films feel like they are exactly the same. The latest film in the Sparks adaptation cannon is “The Best of Me” which feels even less original than usual.

“The Best of Me” centers on Amanda (Michelle Monaghan) and Dawson (James Marsden), soul mates who reconnect after the death of a mutual friend (Gerald McRaney). Dawson has just survived a massive explosion on an oil rig at sea. Amanda is unhappily married, but has a son that she loves. It has been 21 years since the two have seen each other, but thanks to constant flashbacks into the past, we learn how the relationship between young Amanda (Liana Liberato) and young Dawson (Luke Bracey) started and ended.

Like a paint-by-numbers, we get ever little Sparks cliché thrown at us. Of course we get the rich father of the girl-in-love to offer Dawson money to stop seeing his daughter. We get the tragic family of the boy from the wrong side of the tracks. We get the “we can’t do this” but they do it anyway relationship. Oh and I can’t forget the music that is supposed to help make us feel sad.
I am a fan of Marsden and the guy seriously needs to be offered better roles than this tripe. As far as Sparks adaptations, “The Best of Me” is “The Worst of Them”. You would be better off staying home and watching “Safe Haven” again.

By: Marc Ferman