IMDb description: A woman discovers a tragic love letter in a bottle on the beach, and is determined to track down its author.
Roger Ebert Review: two stars
Female protagonist: Theresa (Robin Wright Penn)
Male protagonist: Garret (Kevin Costner)
in the novel it's spelled Garrett
Background: This was the first film adaption of a Nicholas Sparks novel. However, it wasn't Sparks' first novel. That was "The Notebook", which came out two years before. Message in a Bottle came out February 1999, less than a year after the novel was published. My guess is that, since Kevin Costner was a producer, he had optioned the book and had it in development well before the book was published (and that's why it came out before The Notebook).
Theresa (Robin Wright), a columnist for the Boston Globe, discovers a message in a bottle while she's on vacation in Cape Cod. She's recently-ish divorced (the movie starts with her dropping off her son to spend the summer with his dad, his new wife, and their baby). The words of a man writing to the woman he loves (his "one true north") speaks to her. After showing it to her coworkers and editor, the letter is published. The letter strikes a nerve, and Theresa receives lots of mail about the letter. There's even another letter discovered! Through some investigation (which now seems so quaint because the internet wasn't really a thing at this point in '99), aided by coworkers at the newspaper, she discovers the name of the letter-writer and where he lives.
In no time she's on her way to his sleepy coastal town, and they have a somewhat meet-cute at the dock where Garret (Kevin Costner) is restoring a boat. Out of the blue (or is it fate?) he invites her to go sailing with him early in the morning. She leaves her jacket on the boat, he has to return it. So he shows up at her hotel and their interaction feels so real. He's awkward, she's awkward. These are two people that haven't dated in a long while, and even though they clearly have interest in one another they feel a bit unsure and scared of what it means.
Costner plays Garret so well. He's aloof, but not in a bad, uninteresting way. He plays the hurt the audience knows he has quietly and subtly, and you can understand why he was probably interested in the role (however, spoiler alert, it is much different than the novel version of Garret which I will discuss when I compare/contrast).
What I like about the relationship between Theresa and Garret is how adult it feels. Both are "older" (Costner was 44 and Wright was 33, which is very different from their ages in the book....will discuss later). These are two people that have experienced love, marriage, death, divorce and have their own well-established careers and lives that they're leading. I guess I just feel those struggles of dating as a 38 year old that I didn't when I was 16 and saw the movie in the theater. When Garret comes up to Boston to visit Theresa, he sleeps on the couch because she has her son with her that weekend. When the son leaves the next night and they are alone, Theresa says something about having to get used to someone else being in her home.
The screenplay is very vague about what actually happened to Garret's wife, Catherine, and how she died. There's also some weird family drama between Garret and his former in-laws. They, along with the secret Theresa keeps of finding Garret's message in a bottle, provide the tension and conflict in the movie. The family drama does help fill in some of Garret's character and backstory, so I'll let it go. And thankfully Garret's discovery of Theresa having his messages and bottle meant for his dead wife is only a minor obstacle; it's honestly almost an afterthought most of the movie even though it propels the action.
Paul Newman, playing Garret's dad, steals every scene he's in. The producers really lucked out in getting him.
As a first foray into Nicholas Sparks adaptations, this sets a pretty good tone and fairly high bar. It also has all the standards that we've come to know from "A Nicholas Sparks Movie" - a coastal setting, attractive people falling in love, miscommunication, love, death, a single dad. What I like about the movie is how earnest it is; how naturally the relationship plays out. I recommend it.
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