Dear John

2010. Dir: Lasse Hallström. Starring: Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried, Richard Jenkins, Henry Thomas and D.J. Cotrona. ●○○○○



If Dear John had opened in 2009 it would have had the dubious homour of being the worst film I had seen that year. As it is it hasn't quite achieved that level of notoriety. Please note this is not an endorsement of the film, just a reminder of how bad my choices have been this year.

With it being a Nicolas Sparks (The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe) adaptation you could write the plot on the back of a matchbox. Soldier (Channing Tatum - wooden) meets student (Amanda Seyfried - not bothering to act at all) during one summer. They fall in love. He gets called away. They write each other letters. Until something happens that makes them stop - I won't say what it is for fear of spoiling the film but if you've heard the generic term of "Dear John" letters then you probably know how the film will end.



I would like to point out that the movie does have a very realistic portrait of the growth of a relationship and the strains it then couses when they are seperated. Even if the very idea of a "special forces" soldier not trying to coerce or cajole his girlfriend into sex until the night before he's shipped to Iraq seems unlikely it does help to accentuate the deep mytical bond between the characters - enough to make you imagine they're meant to be together. The endless montage scenes with the letters between the protagonists as voiceovers also help in this regard. I'd also recommend the work of the location scout, finding a suitable southern ranch for Seyfried's wealthy family, a gorgeous beachfront and the combat settings were equally realistic.

I have also been told that the themes of how the sense of duty felt by both the characters is what attracts them, pulls them apart and gives them a way forward. However this is not something that occurred to me during or after the film so it's fair to say we can discount the intellectual critique.

On the other hand the performances across the board are pretty terrible. Even the reliable Richard Jenkins, underplaying autistic tendencies, is not giving anything close to his best work. Talking of autism the film grossly exploits two peripheral characters on the spectrum in order to make cheap points about the type of people our lovers are and how they relate to the world. It also uses strokes and cancer to make sly little points. Outside of the lovers characters come and go with no sense of narrative structure and their philosophies and emotional outlook will vary according to the needs of the plot.

One example of this is Seyfried college buddy Randy (played by Scott Porter - who frankly is far more attractive than Tatum). Early on, whilst he's being a jerk just to provoke Tatum, she tells Tatum that he only thinks he likes her, but in fact she's not his type at all. My gaydar instantly went ping at that but there you go. This was followed by another scene later where he apologises to Tatum and lets him into the social set, then finally he's staring at Seyfried's back during a lecture. He's then never seen again. Doesn't add anything else to the plot, you see.

Lasse Hallstrom, who managed to be delicate with Hachi, pours on the bathos until you can stand no more turning this into an even more sickly sweet confection than it had any right to be.

In conclusion I have to say this is the sort of film that idiots like me watch, so you don't have to. Awful awful awful.