Dear John

Based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, Dear John is a tepid and uninvolved wannabe romantic tear-jerker. The lovers at the center of the story are John Tyree (Channing Tatum) and Savannah (Amanda Seyfried). They meet on a beach back in the Spring of 2001, and the movie is supposed to follow their relationship over the years, along with the many trials they meet along the way. The main miscalculation of the filmmakers is that neither one is very interesting, nor do they get to spend much time together, so why should we care?

The two lovers come from different walks of life. John is a Green Beret on leave with a murky troubled past. The movie keeps on hinting at it, but never goes into any detail. At one point, he takes Savannah out to dinner, and as they enter the restaurant, they are stopped by a man who asks John what he's doing there, and that he doesn't want any trouble. We never find out who this man is, what happened between John and him, nor do we ever see him again for the rest of the movie. As for Savannah, she's a blandly sweet little thing who likes to ride horses, build homes for charity, and hang out with the mentally challenged little boy who lives next door to her. Her dream is to open a summer camp for autistic children. Despite their different life styles, they hit it off, and spend two weeks together in lover's bliss. He teaches her how to surf, she sings romantic songs to him on a guitar, and they both make PG-13-rated love. Soon, they must go their separate ways, as he has to go back to the military, and she has to go back to college. He promises her that she'll see him again when his tour of duty ends in 12 months, and that their time apart will pass quickly. "A lot can happen in 12 months", Savannah replies ominously.

Naturally, something does happen in those months apart. September 11th happens, and John is forced to extend his tour of military service. They begin to write letters to each other, but it is hard to keep in touch, and both begin to lose hope. The audience loses hope right around the same time, as the screenplay by Jamie Linden (We Are Marshall) begins to hopelessly spin its wheels. It can't think of anything to do with these characters, as they're forced to spend the entire movie apart, and there was never much chemistry between them when they were together. John is kind of rigid and wooden (part of this I credit to Mr. Tatum's rather wooden performance here), while Savannah seems nice enough, but never develops a real personality. They fail to create any sparks, and since certain plot developments (which I will not reveal) force Savannah to leave the film for the entire middle section, we're left with absolutely no desire to see them get together, or concern ourselves as to whether they will see each other again. It's strange and a little uncomfortable to watch a movie that is obviously trying to tug at our hearts, but creates no emotional response whatsoever, due to the haphazard nature of the characters.

Oddly enough, the film's secondary relationship comes across as being more memorable. This is the relationship between John and his emotionally distant and mildly autistic father, played by Richard Jenkins. It stands out not so much because the characters are more strongly thought out here, but because of Jenkins' performance, which is the best in the film. He plays a man who seems to be afraid to show any real emotion to his son, or to anyone. His main passion is collecting coins, which he spends hours every day obsessively checking and cleaning each one. He also cooks the same food for dinner every night of the week, each week. The subplot concerning John's efforts to reach his father emotionally, and to ease him slowly out of his rigid routine is the closest thing the movie has to a real emotional impact. Too bad that the conclusion to this plot ends up feeling overly calculated and manipulative, as well as anti-climactic.

Dear John is an unsatisfying movie that seems to think its hitting all the right emotional notes, even when it isn't. We don't care as much as the movie seems to think we do, because the characters are sketchy at best, sometimes fading in and out of the narrative at random. Early on in the film, we're introduced to one of Savannah's friends, who obviously is in love with her, and becomes jealous when her attention is turned to John almost the second they meet on the beach. After a brief fight with John, the character disappears from the plot, and soon from the movie altogether. I was also put off by the way the filmmakers seem to almost romanticize the current war situation, since John only sees any time on the battlefield when it is convenient for the plot. A majority of his time as a soldier is spent sitting around in a tent, waiting for letters from his lover. After the intense realism of The Hurt Locker, this movie's vision of war seems downright tame.

Looking at the film's message board over on the IMDB, it seems that fans are upset that the ending has been changed from the book. They complain that the new ending is artificial, which I find odd, since everything that comes before it is pretty artificial also. I suspect Dear John will do well with the crowd who flocks to the Twilight movies. There's a lot of attractive actors on display, looking longingly at each other, as they recite cornball romance novel dialogue. I didn't like this movie very much, but hey, I don't like Twilight that much either.

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