"Love is sacrifice, always”. The seemingly profound nugget of
sappy wisdom is apparently the point of The
Longest Ride, the latest in a never-ending line of Nicholas Sparks romance
adaptations. And it will prove to be an excruciating truth for guys who are
dragged by their significant others to endure this sudsy, predictable film
about two generations of star-crossed lovers. That's right, you get two banal
love stories for the price of one, and yet it hardly feels like a bargain.
Clint Eastwood's son, Scott, leads the
film and you won't be allowed to forget how much he looks like his old man.
George Tillman Jr., another respectable director doing mediocre work for some
of that Sparks cash, simply can't stop shooting every contour of Eastwood's
body and mug. We get it. He even does that little squint like his old man when
he's trying to look serious. The news Eastwood is often shirtless and mugging
for the camera probably just sold a few more tickets. You're welcome, studio
bean-counters!
The Longest Ride has all of the trademarks we've come to
expect from a Sparks romance. Sun-kissed North Carolina skies, hunky
old-fashioned dudes who always know how to treat a lady, and women who seem to
be just waiting for the right guy to come along. They never have anything else
going on worth a damn. Eastwood plays Luke Collins, the manliest man of all
because he's a champion bull-rider with a great smile, a cowboy hat, and a
rusty pickup truck. All he's missing is his own ranch. Oh wait; he has one of
those, too. After suffering a near-fatal injury at the horns of the mighty bull
Rango (who is portrayed as evil incarnate), Luke takes time off only to return
a year later. It's then that he tips his hat towards Sophia (Britt Robertson),
a studious art student on the verge of a career-making internship in New York.
You'll be shocked to learn their obvious differences, he's a country boy and
she's a city girl, is only a momentary issue. Soon they're on the perfect first
date, having a picnic by the riverside.
The date takes a nasty but ultimately
fortuitous turn when they find a crashed car on the road. Inside they find
injured 91-year-old Ira Levinson (Alan Alda) and quickly pull him to safety.
Sophia also retrieves a box that turns out to be old letters Ira wrote to his
deceased wife, Ruth. While helping him recover in the hospital, Sophia reads
him the letters, flashing back to the 1940s when young Ira and Ruth (played by
Jack Huston and Oona Chaplin, both descendants of Hollywood royalty) were just
becoming lovers.
It turns out the most effective aspects of The Longest Ride all involve Ira and Ruth's troubled
relationship, and that should come as no surprise given the strength of the actors
and the emotional weight they are forced to carry. The older couple has to deal
with Ira's fighting in WWII, where he suffers an injury that affects his
ability to father children. Since they both desperately want to be parents, the
strain on their marriage, and the sacrifices they make to stay together, are
genuinely affecting. But it also makes Sophia and Luke's problems slight by
comparison. Can she set aside her art career to work on a ranch the rest of her
life? Can he quit a dangerous career as a bull-rider to be a safe, loving
husband? Oh, the drama of it all! These unequal love stories would have been
better served in two separate movies. You can sense screenwriter Craig
Bolotin's desperate flailing to connect them emotionally during one of Sparks'
classic "twist" endings where something completely unbelievable
happens out of nowhere. In Safe
Haven a major character was
revealed to have been a dead spirit the entire time. Nothing quite on that
level happens here, but its still bullcrap enough that Rango might have left it
on the bottom of Luke's boot. Sparks' fans will eat it up, though, and that's
who The Longest Ride is for, anyway.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
