Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried Are "In Time"

"Dear John" is a Love Letter to Failure and Heartbreak

Why lie? When the trailer for "Dear John" first broke on the internet, we couldn’t get through it without getting a little choked up. Come on! From the guy who wrote the ultimate tear-jerker, "The Notebook," comes another gloriously saccharine syrupy tale of young love torn asunder. Throw in that damn Snow Patrol song, a 9-11 theme and a few glamour shots of wet, half-naked Channing Tatum and ethereal Breck girl Amanda Seyfried and we were sold. Sadly, "Dear John" is much better as a trailer than as an actual film.

The pre-Valentine’s Day date flick offering is the story of John Tyree (Channing Tatum), a Special Forces solider, who meets and falls for Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) while on leave at home in North Carolina. After just two weeks together, the pair is madly, desperately, in love, a romance that plays out through a series of Dear John letters as John returns to combat duty.

Adapted from Nicholas Sparks’ novel of the same name, it has all the signature Sparks’ elements audiences have gobbled up along with their Junior Mints and XXL popcorn, making the author one of the biggest franchises in Hollywood. There’s a summer love story set in a small town in North Carolina, the couple has a catch phrase (“I’ll be seeing you” is “See you soon then” this time around), and the romantic heroes make out in the rain. It’s a formula that’s worked like Novocain before. But not this time.

Part of the blame lands squarely on Sparks’ shoulders. It’s very difficult to be invested in a romance where the main characters spend the majority of the film apart, making the love story feel untethered and unsatisfying. But bigger fault lies in the direction by Lasse Hallstrom, whose previous work runs the gamut from profoundly brilliant ("What’s Eating Gilbert Grape," "My Life as a Dog") to the legendarily campy (Hallstrom directed 26 of ABBAs best known music videos, including "Dancing Queen"). "Dear John" is neither. Lost somewhere in a no man’s land of sad sack melodrama and thwarted romance, the film is like a child first learning to play the saxophone. While some notes land on their mark, most are cringingly off key.

Despite other flaws, the one constant in the film is good acting. Tatum turns in an unexpectedly layered, emotionally revealing performance, while Seyfried lends her role an interestingly quirky twist. Richard Jenkins, as always, is stellar as John’s distant father, a relationship which provides the most deeply touching scene in the film, and Henry Thomas, of early "E.T" fame, has a small but pivotal role that is mostly notable because, well, it’s Henry frickin’ Thomas ("Ehhh-lee-ot").
Neither a great film nor a terrible film, this is the kind of movie that makes men roll their eyes close around Valentine’s Day when their girlfriends say "Oh honey, we have to go see that!"

Dear John,

It doesn’t seem right to say this in writing but there’s no other way. We don’t ever want to see you again. It’s not you. It’s us. It simply wasn’t meant to be.

xoxo

Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried on ABBA, True Love and "Dear John"

“What does it mean to truly love another?”

That’s the question Nicholas Sparks, and his wiley, tear-jerking ways, asks in "Dear John," the most recent film adaptation from the author to arrive on screens. The movie, which tells the story of John Tyree (Channing Tatum), a Special Forces solider, who falls in love with Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) while on leave at home in North Carolina, is about “first love, that one you cannot get right no matter how hard you try,” Tatum, sporting a goatee and a luxurious black cashmere sweater, says after settling into a table at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills.

The actor, who deftly exposes a masculine yet tender and vulnerable John Tyree, has been attached to the project since it began development four years ago, long before the studio had a script, a director or a co-star. He says it was the imperfection of the love story that first attracted him to the material. “You’re supposed to not do things right,” Tatum smiles. “That’s what I loved about reading the book and that’s what I love about the movie. It’s not a fantastical box of a movie with a bow on top. It’s real. It has more edge and darkness to it than some of [Sparks’] novels in the past.”

Adding to the realism was the inclusion of Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallstrom (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Cider House Rules, My Life As a Dog), a man who Tatum describes as having “a sort of allergic reaction to anything that’s cheesy.” It’s an interesting affliction for the man who helmed a catalogue of ABBA videos during their prime years, from 1974-1982, including classics for Dancing Queen and Supertrouper. Filled with soft focus, smoke machine haze, star filters and silver leisure suits, those videos made frequent appearances on the Dear John set. “He’ll show you on his iPod,” Tatum laughs. “He’ll be like, ‘Hey guys, would you like to see my earlier work?’”

Having gotten any cheesiness out of his system with his early music videos, a time the director calls “film school,” Hallstrom was very concerned about how to walk the line between drama and romantic melodrama without making it seem forced. “My number one challenge was to stay on the right side of that line,” Hallstrom explains in a soft Swedish accent. “I am very drawn to strong sentiment, but I think I have an allergy to sentimentality. The difference, I think, is in the performances. I tried to stay real and honest with the performances and make it as authentic as possible. That’s the trick. Anytime you do a false move, something pushed, stylized or affected, you’re dead.”

Hallstrom was unfamiliar with Tatum’s work when he was approached to direct. Before signing onto the project, he wanted to make sure he would be able to work with an actor he hadn’t expressly chosen for the role. “I watched his movies and he was very real. I met him and just thought he was the best choice. He’s a really great actor. He’s so sweet and charming and gregarious and generous,” the director enthuses.

Searching for the female lead, some of the best young talent in Hollywood auditioned but Seyfried brought a quirkiness to the part unlike any other actress.

“We auditioned lots of ladies and she was the choice,” Hallstrom says. “She was unpredictable.”

“I got to read with all the girls,” Tatum recalls. “It’s very interesting to see these different Savannahs and then one walks through the door and you’re like, ‘Ooooh. Right.’ It’s one of those ah-ha moments. [Amanda’s] fantastic. She’s hilarious and really weird at times, which kind of makes it great. She makes really interesting choices, goes away from the obvious all the time, she’s got the voice of an angel and she’s beautiful. She’s the perfect package.”

Seyfried lights up at the mention of her leading man and is eager to return the compliment when she hears the praise heaped on her by Tatum. “When I first met [Channing] I was like ‘Oh, shoot, am I gonna fall in love with him?’” the actress beams. “He’s so cute and so funny and really honest. He’s the perfect co-star. We both really respected each other and we had the same mentality on set. When you have an actor that just jumps in it with you, it’s pretty cool.”

Dear John opens February 5th