The Sparks Oeuvre: Wrap-up

For the past six months I lived in The Sparks Oeuvre world. It was a fun and interesting place to be, because even though I love romcoms, "I don't really know love at all." Declarations of love in movies generally make me feel slightly anxious and a bit embarrassed, and sometimes I have to look away. For whatever reason though, I adore romcoms. And while #TheSparksOeuvre isn't exactly romcom territory, the time spent there the past several months has been an inescapable residence in romance and love. 

Love in the Sparks world is about finding the one. His romances feel epic and life-altering because all of his couples are finding their one. Of course note every love story told is about finding the one, but that's not what Sparks is interested in. His couples fall in love fast because they each know that this time it feels different. And I imagine that's what it feels like when people find their one—everything feels different, and maybe it can't be explained because how do you explain why it's this one person and not the person you were dating before (or are currently dating, more on that later)? 

In the words of Ted Mosby, it's ineffable. 

One thing that maybe doesn't get discussed about Sparks stories is how much cheating is involved. Allie cheats on her fiance Lon in The Notebook. Savannah cheats on John while he's deployed in Dear John. Amanda cheats on her husband with Dawson in The Best of Me. Gabby cheats with Travis in The Choice. In all these cases it's the woman who is in an existing relationship when the cheating occurs; the men are essentially single and have held a flame for decades (Noah and Dawson) or knew immediately they were in love with the woman (John and Travis). 

It's an interesting dynamic that Sparks has set up. Certainly I don't condone cheating, and I don't think Sparks necessarily does either. He full on recognizes that people are messy and relationships are messy and sometimes people make bad choices but that doesn't make them bad people. No one is cheating out of meanness or spite or anger; it's always about love, and though it may sound like a bad excuse to some I tend to give it a pass. To Sparks, love is important. Life-altering. And worth making bad choices for, because loving someone fully and whole-heartedly is to be alive. (Small sidenote that in Safe Haven the novel Katie specifically does not sleep with Alex because she is still married, even though she's run away from her husband who is abusive.)

Many critics are unfairly harsh towards Sparks adaptations. They get called out for being unrealistic, cheesy, simple. But so rarely is the same harshness and critique applied to films that are made for a different, perhaps more "masculine" audience. Big action movies are also unrealistic, cheesy, and simple - is a dude really going to need to defend their family from invaders, or fight off cars that turn into sentient bots hellbent on destroying earth, or drive cars fast and furiously through exotic locales? Movies like that are mass marketed and have huge appeal, even if some do get harsh reviews from critics. The point is that they are seen as entertainment that can make money because their target is men. 

But Sparks movies are known to be exclusively for female audiences, and anything made for females is immediately seen as inconsequential or ridiculous. Think about the reaction to Twilight, boy bands, fashion, decorating. Superficial and frivolous, and would only appeal to women. But I ask what is more likely to be a part of most everyone's life: falling in love and building a relationship and life with someone, or becoming a vigilante to protect your family from intruders (or driving cars fast and furiously)? 

That was all a bit off-topic, so thanks for reading my short diatribe about taking films centered on love and romance and geared towards a female audience more seriously, or at least not completely dismissing them. 

I truly enjoyed my time with The Sparks Oeuvre, experiencing people falling in love, staying in love, fighting for love, and losing love. Some were better than others, and overall I probably enjoyed the films more for their tighter storytelling and great actors and directors (and all the other important crafts-people that contribute to a film: make-up, wardrobe, lighting, location, editing). Here's my ranking of the book and movies, plus a few "favorites":

	Book	Movie
1	The Longest Ride	A Walk to Remember
2	Safe Haven	The Lucky One
3	The Notebook	The Choice
4	Message in a Bottle	The Notebook
5	The Lucky One	The Best of Me
6	Nights in Rodanthe	Message in a Bottle
7	Dear John	Safe Haven
8	A Walk to Remember	Dear John
9	The Best of Me	The Longest Ride
10	The Choice	Nights in Rodanthe
11	The Last Song	The Last Song

Favorite Male Lead (movie)
It's probably a tie between Landon Carter in A Walk to Remember and Logan Thibault in The Lucky One

Favorite Female Lead (movie)
I like Beth a lot in The Lucky One because she starts out tentative and a bit harsh but slowly loses that. And I like Theresa in Message in a Bottle because she's juggling different roles but is deep down a romantic. 

Favorite Male Lead (book)
I'm going to go with Luke in The Longest Ride. 

Favorite Female Lead (book)
Gotta be Katie in Safe Haven. She's got determination and a lot of strength, and I was hooked while reading her escape plan from her abusive husband. 

Biggest Change from Page to Screen
Probably A Walk to Remember because it completely changes the setting from 1950s to present day.

Adaptation that stays most true to the source material
The Last Song (obviously, Sparks wrote the screenplay the same time he was writing the novel)

Most Disappointing Adaptation
The Longest Ride, because I liked the book so much and had never seen the movie before I had high expectations.

Best First Kiss
Tie.
A Walk to Remember because we are treated to the classic line of "I might kiss you." and Jamie responding with, "I might be bad at it." And you know Landon loves her because he then says, "That's not possible." but it's entirely possible she could actually be bad at kissing :)
The Choice because it's lit and staged really well, and then has this great exchange - Gabby: "Why are you walking slowly towards me?" Travis: "Because if I ran I'd scare you." 

Best Sex Scene (movie)
The Lucky One
Sparks is generally pretty PG when he writes sex scenes. Sometimes he just writes "they made love" and sometimes he'll go into very simple explanation of actions leading up to sex. And his leads are always in love when they have sex. The only characters that don't have sex are Jamie and Landon in A Walk to Remember (book and movie), Ronnie and Will in The Last Song (book and movie), and Katie and Alex in Safe Haven (book only). 

The Sparks Oeuvre: The Choice (movie)

Tagline: Let your heart decide. 

IMDb description: Travis and Gabby first meet as neighbors in a small coastal town and wind up in a relationship that is tested by life's most defining moments. 

Roger Ebert review: sadly, Roger Ebert passed before this film was released, and therefore the review on his site is not by him. 

Female protagonist: Gabby Holland (Teresa Palmer)

Male protagonist: Travis Shaw, changed from Parker in the book (Benjamin Walker)

Star supporting cast: Tom effin' Wilkinson as Travis' dad; Maggie Grace as Travis' sister; Tom "Superman" Welling as Gabby's boyfriend

Background: Despite being the sixth book published, it was the eleventh (and so far last) to be adapted to a movie. I can't find any information on why, so I've gone ahead and made the reason be that the book was not well-liked so it just languished. That doesn't explain, though, why it was even chosen for a movie adaptation when they are other Sparks books that could have been chosen! I guess we'll never know. 

First off, let's discuss the movie poster which so obviously deviates from the now-standard "two people about to kiss as a light shines between them". This poster has the lovers not even facing each other! And it has a weird color palette (clearly subjective, I know). Every time I saw this as a thumbnail when scrolling through Netflix or Amazon Prime I just thought it looked ugly so I never bothered to watch it. 

The film is still the story of Travis and Gabby, neighbors that fall in love despite him being a playboy and her being completely annoyed by him (but is she??). Oh, and Gabby also has a long-term doctor boyfriend which is a huge DESPITE as well. Small things though when you find your real person. Travis and Gabby soon fall into something over a weekend when her boyfriend is away. The book doesn't really have any tension on whether Gabby is going to tell her boyfriend and end up with Travis. The movie, though, goes a bit cliche and has her unsure of what to do or who to choose. It comes to a head when her boyfriend returns home early and, while out with Gabby and his parents at the local restaurant, Travis also happens to be there. 

This leads to  a showdown between Gabby and Travis. She tries to be like "well, we didn't define what this is." And Travis is like "Oh, so you have fun time with country boy and run back to your rich boyfriend." I don't entirely buy this direction of the argument from Travis; he acts as if he's some poor country boy (like Noah or Dawson) when he actually owns a vet practice with his dad, has a home on the shoreline, owns a boat and a motorcycle, and is well-respected in the community as a vet. The dude speaks with a country accent, but that doesn't mean he's poor. When Gabby is trying to find some footing she claims that she doesn't even know how he feels. To which Travis grabs her face and says HE LOVES HER. He says it over and over. And even though the timeline is still ridiculous, I roll with it because both of the actors really sell it. 

She ends up telling her boyfriend, who is mad at her at first but then proposes. And she says yes, which she tells Travis in a note she leaves for him. Only in movies do people say yes to proposals from the wrong person just to prove a point. They of course make their way back to each other and we see only our second Sparks wedding (the other being in A Walk to Remember). 

There's a nice montage of their life together, until the Sparks Tragic Occurrence that has Gabby in a coma after a car crash and Travis left with the difficult choice of having to pull the plug. He doesn't and she eventually wakes and everything is great. 

Not a lot changes from the book. It's mostly small inconsequential stuff (random name changes, adding a side story for his dad) that generally helps tell a tighter story. The timeline is still very fast, but for whatever reason the actors sell it (Benjamin Walker more so than Teresa Palmer) so when Travis tells Gabby in his southern drawl (the first actor in a Sparks adaption to actually use an accent after Rachel McAdams in The Notebook) that he loves her I believe it. 

I know I give the timeline of the falling in love a lot of heat, but it's an interesting thing to think about. Gabby has been with her boyfriend a long time, and if she had never met Travis she likely would have married him and been happy. Travis would have gone on being a bit of playboy. But they meet each other and it's like Oh THIS is actually my person. It must be a strange thing to experience. Relationships can be messy, and I guess as I get older I just acknowledge that more and realize that most people are honestly doing their best. 

Since I disliked the book so much, I had very low expectations for the movie. Which ended up serving me well, because it wasn't terrible and I mostly enjoyed it.

The Sparks Oeuvre: The Longest Ride (movie)

Tagline: can’t find one. 

IMDb description: The lives of a young couple intertwine with a much older man, as he reflects back on a past love. 

Roger Ebert review: sadly, Roger Ebert passed before this film was released, and therefore the review on his site is not by him. 

Female protagonist: Sophia (Britt Robertson)

Male protagonist: Luke (Scott Eastwood)

Star supporting cast: Alan Alda as Ira (played as a young man by John Huston, with his young wife Ruth played by Oona Chaplin.....lots of children/grandchildren of Hollywood icons in this film)

Background: The Longest Ride was released way back in April 2013, a little over a year after The Best of Me. This is the first in the Sparks Oeuvre that I knew literally nothing about (I mean obviously I had just read the book but before that this was not anywhere in my consciousness). I hadn't even seen the trailer before I settled in to watch it! Having watched them now....wow, they are something. It's not unheard of for a trailer to be nothing like the film, but it is always fun when one is found. The trailers lean heavy in to the sexy aspect of the film and honestly I did not find the film to be that sexy. After watching the movie, it felt like the scene used at the beginning of the trailers was shot specifically for the trailer because it was awkwardly placed in the movie and didn't make a lot of sense. 

I really wanted to like this because I genuinely enjoyed the book. But the movie changes all the big and small details to make a more-cliched movie (which is saying something when it's adapted from a Sparks book). Most of the acting is pretty bad. Scott Eastwood is attractive but I never quite believe him, and the script has him be mean in one scene that is entirely untrue of his character in the book. The dialogue is very bad, including the last line of the film that makes absolutely no sense (why does Sophia ask Luke "What took you so long?" when at that point they are already married and their relationship wasn't over an extracted length of time?). Scenes are awkwardly staged and make no rational sense sometimes. 

A few good things though. The bull-riding scenes were actually staged pretty well and looked good. The characters of Ruth and Ira were excellently portrayed and had a lot of natural chemistry. But these are both very small parts of the overall film. 

The Sparks Oeuvre: The Best of Me (movie)

Tagline: You never forget your first love. 

IMDb description: A pair of former high school sweethearts reunite after many years when they return to visit their small hometown. 

Roger Ebert review: sadly, Roger Ebert passed before this film was released, and therefore the review on his site is not by him. 

Female protagonist: Amanda (Michelle Monaghan, Liana Liberato: young Amanda)

Male protagonist: Dawson (James Marsden, Luke Bracey: young Dawson)

Star supporting cast: Gerald McRaney (Major Dad) as Amanda and Dawson's mutual friend/caretaker/guardian/good  person

Background: This is the ninth Sparks movie adaptation, following a string of near-annual releases since Dear John in 2010. It's also the first to have a repeat actor! James Marsden played Lon in The Notebook, a truly lovely character who just happened to meet Allie at the wrong time. Here Marsden is the long-lost love from youth that gets the second chance (according to IMDb Paul Walker was originally cast but sadly died before filming started). I originally stated that I had seen this movie before, but I was wrong. I've seen parts of it because I knew the story and key plot points, but I had definitely never watched the entire film before. For whatever reasons my view on the film was negative and I was kind of dreading watching it. 

But I actually liked it! Weird, right?! 

Dawson and Amanda meet as teenagers in high school in small town Louisiana. He's from a bad family that does bad stuff; she's from a rich family. But they like each regardless and form a connection that is quite lovely. Dawson is taken in by Tuck, and both Dawson and Amanda see Tuck as a father-like figure, a friendly widower who loves them both. Dawson ends up going to jail for a truly accidental death, and rather than let Amanda wait for him he tells her he won't take her visits. She's devastated (and folks, I was invested enough in the characters that I was too). 

Twenty (one) years later, Tuck has died and his estate lawyer summons both Dawson and Amanda to their hometown per Tuck's will. Turns out he plays matchmaker from the grave, as he wants both of them to spread his ashes at his charming cottage retreat (where Dawson and Amanda spent some steaming time as teenagers). At first they are a bit cold to each other, stung by past pain and hurt. 

But, they also feel incredibly at ease and comfortable with one another. Honestly folks, it truly is a great feeling to be around a person/people that just "get" you and know how to love you. Dawson has never stopped loving Amanda, as he says during one of their chemistry-fueled dinners. Amanda is married and treading carefully, but it's clear she's also never stopped loving Dawson. (I have to suspend my own disbelief at this as I don't really think people carry torches that long, but then again I've never been in an all-encompassing, this-is-my-soulmate love so what do I know.)

Whereas the novel spent a chapter giving the background on Dawson and Amanda, the movie spends equal time with them as teenagers and as adults. This is key to why the story works better in the movie. I really feel the love and loss between them. Also, both the young and older actors playing the couple have effortless chemistry. You believe why they would be drawn to each other as teenagers and why that would last through to being adults. I mean seriously folks, every time they are on screen it's fire. 

The movie also switches up the tragedy that causes them to lose touch. The movie has the character accidentally killed be a family member and it immediately makes Dawson's story make a lot more sense. Also, their estrangement makes a lot more sense, too. In the book, I don't recall a scene of Dawson in jail telling Amanda to move on and not visit him and I was always so confused why she didn't just wait for him. Why did she get married? The whole narrative is adjusted and it makes for a better story.

The film isn't perfect. It's still burdened with Sparks' characterization of Dawson's extended family and the layers and layers of tragedy. Even with that, though, I like the characters a lot and feel even more impacted by the sad ending handed to them. Amanda, though, is at least divorced from her husband at the end of the movie and that's a win in my mind (again, I don't readily advocate for divorce willy-nilly, but it's a legitimate choice and very often the right one - happy marriages don't end in divorce and this was the right choice for Amanda). 

The Sparks Oeuvre: The Best of Me (novel)

The Best of Me is Sparks' 10th novel, released a year after Safe Haven. He's definitely gotten into a certain mode at this point, but also trying to mix things up just a bit and trying his hand at larger casts, more tragedy, and outright villains. The Best of Me has all of that, but it's also essentially the same story as The Notebook. 

Dawson and Amanda meet as teens in small town Louisiana. He's from the well-known for all the wrong reasons Cole family, and Amanda is from the upstanding Collier family. Despite social and economic divides, and the strong opposition from her family, Dawson and Amanda fall in love. After an incident with his family, Dawson is taken in by Tuck, a local widower who becomes a loving paternal figure to both of them. Tragedy strikes, though, and Dawson is the cause of the death of a local doctor after a car crash one night. He gets sent to jail and him and Amanda lose touch. 

Until twenty-five years later, when Tuck dies and his lawyer contacts both Dawson and Amanda as they are requested to spread his ashes at his requested place. Is this their second chance? Dawson has never lost his love for Amanda. Amanda is married to a man who became an alcoholic after their youngest daughter died of cancer. Over the weekend that they spend together, orchestrated by Tuck from the grave, they know that they still love one another. BUT. 

Amanda is married. Y'all, I know that marriage is a big deal. But I also know that sometimes people shouldn't be married anymore. It's not a failure to recognize that one's marriage is no longer working and it can't be fixed. That's especially true if you love someone else. Amanda admits to Dawson that on her wedding day to Frank she was thinking of him. If her and Dawson hadn't been reunited due to Tuck's passing, she would just go on living her life with an unfulfilling marriage. 

Her weekend with Dawson is a chance for her to assess what she really wants and make a choice. But she doesn't do any of that. She tells Dawson to tell her what to do. When she goes through the reasons why she can't end her marriage they are all based on the emotions of others and not what she wants or needs. Frank wouldn't be able to handle it, he'd drink even more. The kids would be traumatized. She'd be breaking up her family and leaving them.

None of that is true though. Of course she shouldn't be callous to Frank's feelings, but his reactions and how he handles a possible divorce are on him. The kids would likely not be traumatized, as long as her and Frank are still both committed parents. And she would not be breaking up the family. It's not as if her and Dawson are planning to run away together to Italy and never see her kids again. Getting divorced isn't "breaking up the family"; you're still a family regardless if you're divorced. As a child of divorce myself, I know that it can be hard. But it's truly better for everyone in the long run when it's the right choice to make. Parents are people outside of being a parent, and they deserve happiness too. Life is too short to be in a relationship that isn't right. It's good for kids to see their parents be in healthy relationships (be that with another partner or staying single). 

But Dawson and Amanda don't talk about any of that. They choose to be martyrs, as if it's virtuous of them to neglect their own happiness and well-being to "do what's right." That's not virtuous, because at some point the kids will grow and move out of the house and then it's just these two people who aren't right for each other. 

So, unlike Allie in The Notebook who realizes she can't marry Lon even though she made a promise to him because she loves someone else, Amanda chooses to return to her home and husband. Just in time for her son to get in a car crash and need a heart transplant. At the same time, Dawson is involved in a family altercation which, sadly, makes him an organ donor. You can deduce what happens next. 

Sparks fills his story with a large, yet mostly unimportant, supporting cast. Where he used to keep his stories limited to his main couple with a few people around them (generally disapproving parents or a close confidant), he now spends time with Amanda's son and husband, Dawson's cousins that are out to get him even still, his cousin's girlfriend, the widow of the local doctor he accidentally killed in a car crash, plus her son. It is A LOT and most of the time I don't enjoy Sparks' characterization of supporting characters, and it always feels a bit silly when he writes "bad" language or describes a character's sinister thoughts. I would have preferred a story that was confined to Dawson and Amanda, but then I guess it would have really just been a retelling of The Notebook. 

Since I didn't grow up in a small town and I never had a high school romance with someone who was from "the wrong side of the tracks", I always feel like the emphasis on those things are super extreme. Do parents really forbid their children from seeing someone because they are from a bad family? Are the strict social roles that people adhere to really a thing? It just always rings so false to me. 

I thought I wasn't going to like this book because I had seen the movie and considered it "the cheating movie." Well, first, I thought I had seen the movie but when I watched it last night it turns out I hadn't seen it other than maybe twenty minutes. And second, it's not really a cheating movie, depending on what constitutes cheating to you. Dawson and Amanda don't cross that line (even though Sparks makes us think they did until several chapters later) but they do kiss and share emotional intimacy. 

If I'm meant to believe that Dawson and Amanda are soulmates who have carried torches for each other for over twenty years, then of course I'm rooting for them even if Amanda is married. Which is a weird thing to do. I don't condone cheating, however I also see the intricacies involved that led these two people to make the choices they did. I'm not here to judge them on that; I'll just comment that if Amanda was truly happy and fulfilled in her marriage a weekend with Dawson would not have posed a problem. 

I didn't dislike the novel, but I oftentimes felt frustrated with Dawson and Amanda for not being more assertive and honest in their feelings for one another. Amanda's mom straight up tells her that she's too afraid to make a choice and wants someone to do it for her, which is basically the worst person in the world making a correct statement. And in the end Amanda doesn't actually have to make a decision anymore, because Dawson dies. The tragedy was a bit much in this one and I honestly just wanted them to be happy together. 

The Sparks Oeuvre: Safe Haven (movie)

Tagline: You know it when you find it. 

IMDb description: A young woman with a mysterious past lands in Southport, North Carolina where her bond with a widower forces her to confront the dark secret that haunts her. 

Roger Ebert review: sadly, Roger Ebert passed away a couple months after this film was released, and therefore the review on his site is not by him. 

Female protagonist: Katie (Julianne Hough)

Male protagonist: Alex (Josh Duhamel)

Star supporting cast: just Cobie Smulders as Katie's friendly neighbor, Jo

Background: This is the 8th Sparks movie adaptation, coming just a year after The Lucky One. By this point, the studio knows exactly what they're doing to promote this film and who the audience is - it's released on Valentine's Day and announces that it's from the author of "The Notebook" and "Dear John". It's always "The Notebook" that is referenced, as it's seen as the high-water mark that all other adaptions should strive to emulate. It also references "Dear John", which seems a bit weird to me because "The Lucky One" is a better movie and the more recent of the two. Julianne Hough was starting to make a name for herself separate from Dancing with the Stars, and Josh Duhamel was dipping into leading man/rom-com roles after stints in the Transformers movies (and starring as Tad Hamilton in one of my cheesy rom-com favorites, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton). 

Katie (Hough) is quite literally looking for a safe haven. She's arrived in Southport by catching a last minute bus after fleeing something dangerous. She's on the run, but we don't yet know why. We do know that she wants to be alone and live a quiet life, just living in a small cottage in the woods and waitressing at a local restaurant. Katie doesn't have a car, so she walks everywhere including the local "grocery store" run by handsome widower and dad of two Alex (Duhamel). He gives her a bike, they spend a day at the beach with this kids, they fall in love. But what is Katie's secret past?!

The movie wants us to think Katie has done something truly terrible because a cop is chasing her. When Alex sees her face on one of those "Wanted" posters he is incredulous that the woman he's just fallen in love with is in trouble with the law. He confronts Katie and she decides to leave. Alex recognizes his mistake and has the classic "chase after someone before they leave" moment, this time at a ferry. She then tells Alex she's not running from the cops, but A cop: her abusive husband. 

This is entirely different from the book and I hate the change. In the book, Katie is secretive about her former life with Alex because she's afraid of being caught by her husband if she gets too comfortable. Alex intuits a lot about her based on his background as a criminal investigator in the military (this back story is completely gone in the movie). He pieces a lot of it together but tells Katie she only has to tell him what she's comfortable telling. And then she does, because she's building trust in their relationship. The movie just ruins all of that for the cheesy "oh no I made a mistake I need to run after them."

In my opinion, the novel tells the story in a better way. It doesn't make us guess about Katie's background, and it tells how she tried to get away several times and she planned her escape for months. It's great character-building for Katie, and a lot of that is lost in the movie (although I do think Hough does a decent enough job). 

This is the second time that a Sparks adaptation is directed by Lasse Halstrom (he did Dear John, too). He's the only director to repeat in the Sparks Oeuvre, which I guess is something. He's a good director, but I think he's saddled with a somewhat bad script. The script jettisons much of the backstory of both Katie and Alex, to the detriment of both. They then become just attractive people that fall in love, which isn't bad but also leaves this film a bit....shrug, I guess.