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.
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