Dear John, You Suck

Like most young women, when the trailers started coming out about the Dear John movie staring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, based on the book by Nicolas Sparks, I couldn't wait to go see it. The thought of another great movie like The Notebook, also based on one of his books, was invigorating. I begged my boyfriend to take me to see it, and was even willing to use one of my "forces" ( I only get to force him to do 3 really girly things, like see a chick flick, a month). What turned out to be a force however was the movie itself.



The movie is about a young solider John Tyree (Channing Tatum) home on leave to visit his autistic father at the same time as a college student Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) is home on spring break. They meet in your typical boy saves the day fashion and the chemistry between them couldn't ignite a spark, let alone a whole fire. John is your typical angry bad boy reformed by training making a career out of fighting for his country and while Channing Tatum is perfect for this role given his past experience on screen, he seems to be trying a little too hard. He tries to find the right balance between showing us his bad boy side mixed with a good guy but just can't seem to find the real mix that was needed. His performance is not as far fetched as Amanda's however. Her cute little frame and wavy blond hair fit very well with the sweet and innocent angel personality they were going for, but the way she reads her lines and carries herself gives the character this spark of attitude and bad girl persona that clashes with the way the character was meant to come across. Savannah is the picture perfect saint spending her days building houses for charity and taking care of a young autistic boy (what a coincidence that John's father is also autistic huh?). Of course the two "fall in love" right away before he is whisked away on a mission and she goes back to school. They write letters everyday which are less then heart wrenching and seem to be written more by brother and sister then two young people in love. How they even manage to get these letters too eachother amazes me, since is it specifially stated that he is not aloud to tell her where he is, so how can he get them postmarked and how does she know what address to send it to?

The best storyline of the whole movie is the issue that John has with his father being autistic. Richard Jenkins performance as Mr. Tyree is very touching and really gives you an inside look at the struggles of trying to raise a son while battling your own demons. He cooks lasagna every Sunday without fail and is obsessed with collecting coins, which is what holds the bond between him and his son. The scene that really pulls at your heart strings is a moment between Channing and Richard where John has just been shot and Mr. Tyree has just had a stroke. John write his father a letter and they seem to over come all the issues that they have had between them all these years. This letter is the only letter shared throughout the film that seems to actually have a purpose to the plot, as well as some actual feeling behind it. Savannah spends most of her time talking to Mr. Tyree instead of John, which I guess was the directors way of foreshadowing the horrible plot twist at the end of the movie.

Of course the "love" that these two young people share couldn't last for long with the great distance between them and the horrible two week foundation they had, so Savannah sends the infamous "Dear John" letter mimicking the letters that used to be sent to the soldiers of WWII when their women had decided they could no longer take the distance and found someone else. The someone else that Savannah finds however, is what ruins the whole ending of the movie. The story tries to make up for its far fetched plot twist by bringing the two lovers back together after a tragedy in Johns family, but the damage has already been done, and since the chemistry between Channing and Amanda was never there in the beginning there is nothing that can be done in the end to save this movie.

I have a feeling that a lot of the beauty, talent, and emotion was lost when trying to translate Nicholas Sparks book to the screen this time around. Maybe there was too much plot to fit into a 2 hour time span so they had to cut out a lot of key elements that would have really tied this movie together. Whatever the reason may be, its definitely didn't live up to the expectations that were set by the other films based on his books. On the plus side, being shot in South Carolina, their was a lot of amazing scenery behind the characters throughout the film.