Dear John

Bea says: Cecil and I toddled off to our local cinema to see this one - and it was a pretty forgettable experience. The film is taken from a fairly well-known book by Nicholas Sparkes, and the plot is relatively predictable: boy (wrong side of the tracks, serving in Iraq) meets girl (well off, at university) on spring break in their hometown. Whirlwind two week romance follows; he returns to Iraq planning to leave the army at the end of his tour, she goes back to college.

September 11 happens. He stays in army out of a sense of duty to his country, she marries someone else, sending him a "Dear John" letter. Fast forward several years. They meet again, instigated by him when he drives to her family's ranch on the evening following his father's funeral; and they spend an evening talking and rediscovering each other (not sexually), and at the end of the evening they part again - water under the bridge and all that.

I fully expected this to be the film's ending. Then a very weird final scene which seemed like it didn't belong at all - her in a cafe in what was possibly Paris and him locking up his bicycle outside to come in and meet her. Not sure what this was all about - perhaps the test audiences didn't like the non traditional ending so they slipped in an extra scene?? It didn't seem to fit at all well, and I would be interested to know if the book finishes that way.

This might have been a good film had there been any sense of connection or chemistry between the two main characters, but the supposed depth of their relationship was not really very believable. It also might have been deepened as a film if any of the side stories were followed more fully - the autism storyline which ran through the whole film for example, or some more exploration of how events can change who we are and the course of our lives in many ways. This was really the theme of the film, but it failed to be explored, giving way to a formulaic Hollywood romance instead.
*1/2

Cecil says: I have very little to say about this film. I have rarely felt so little connection with a series of characters. The rich American teenager scene has never been one I could really identify with, so no matter how much of a thinking person Savannah (I mean, honestly!) was, her family's big house with big garden parties and horses in the paddock out back belong to a world that I will never feel in touch with.

As for the Iraq veteran guy, I was equally disconnected, and this to such an extent that even the scenes with him at his dying father's bedside did nothing to move me, even though I went through the same experience less than a year ago.

No, the only guy I could vaguely see myself in was the clumsy idiot at the beginning who knocks his girlfriend's bag off the pier into the sea and then doesn't have the guts to jump in and fetch it (enter our soldier hero...).

You don't have to identify with characters to get involved in a movie. But if there is no connection, then the film has to be good to draw you in. And "Dear John" was simply not good enough...

*.5