The Best of Me (2014)
The Best of Me is the film adaption of Nicholas Sparks’ novel of the same name. This is from the writer that gave us The Notebook, Dear John and The Lucky One, all brilliant and moving stories that shone on the big screen. Therefore I had high expectations for this film, and unfortunately it didn’t live up to them. Now I haven’t read the book so I don’t know if it was the film adaption that let the story down but I found the majority of the film very predictable and frankly the storyline was too similar to The Notebook with a rich girl falling in love with an underprivileged boy. We’ve seen it all before, and unfortunately the characters in this didn’t have the same feel as Noah and Allie in The Notebook. Nothing against James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan who play the leads here, they both gave a very good performance, as did Luke Bracey and Liana Liberato who played the leads in their teens, but the whole film just fell flat, that is until the last 20 minutes or so where there is a major twist you won’t see coming but this is unfortunately ruined in the very last moments of the film (I won’t spoil it and give away the ending but I will say I left feeling slightly annoyed and with a lot of eye-rolling).
The story of the film follows a pair of former high school sweethearts who reunite after many years when a mutual friend passes away and they both return to their hometown. We are taken back and forth between their love story as teenagers and the present time where they are reunited. The story is sweet and had all the right qualities to make it a very good film but it certainly doesn’t give you the same emotional connection that you get from Sparks’ other stories. Also it is very hard to get past the fact that Marsden and Bracey are supposed to be the same person just different ages, they are completely different people in both looks and build! Maybe that’s just me but I thought they could have cast that better.
Overall the film is nice and you won’t feel like you’ve wasted your time watching it, but if you are looking for something along the lines of The Notebook then I would give this one a miss.
