Genre: Drama, Romance
Rating: C+
There once was a time when hearing Nicholas Sparks’ name attached to a
movie meant that you were going to fall in love with the characters and end up bawling
your eyes when the ending failed to be happy.
It’s all a part of the formula of a Nicholas Sparks movie; two messed up
people meet and fall in love, overcome the obstacles to their relationship, and
just as you think they might get a happy ever after one of them dies. And as
depressing as that sounds, it’s what I’ve always liked about his movies, the
cry at the end. Sadly, The Lucky One, while being a Nicholas
Sparks movie, falls short of this goal.
Logan Thibault (Efron) is a U.S. Marine who, after surviving a
somewhat disastrous night raid, finds a picture of a beautiful young woman
(Schilling) in the sand. This photo becomes a talisman that Logan believes has
kept him safe so when he returns to the US and is unable to adjust to life
outside of the armed forces he decides to walk to Louisiana, across the
continental US, to find the girl in the photo.
The girl, Beth Clayton, is in many ways as damaged as he is, although in
a very different way. She is struggling
with her brother’s unexplained death in Iraq while raising her son and dealing
with her rather abrasive and potentially abusive ex-husband. Beth is initially suspicious of Logan, who
cannot bring himself to tell her just why he’s sought her out, and is rather annoyed
when her grandmother (Danner) gives him a job.
Despite her initial hostility, the two grow close and begin to form a
relationship, although the secret of why Logan came to Louisiana hangs over
them, as does the imposition of Beth’s ex.
I actually enjoyed the acting in this film, despite its rather hokey
premise. The problem with The Lucky One is that it’s really rather
melodramatic, with too many different elements to the plot going on. Efron is a war veteran whose survivor’s guilt
appears to disappear quicker than it appears.
That in itself is believable; what is harder to contend with is the many
layers of drama that is Beth Clayton.
She’s a struggling single mother, trying to raise her somewhat awkward
son in the way that she sees fit, with the threat of losing him to her powerful
ex, the cop and the son of town judge and mayor hopeful. She lives with her sick grandmother, was
orphaned at a young age, and is struggling with the loss of her brother, who
she was very close with. Also, she can
be a bit of a bitch. It’s all just a bit
too much to deal with, and could use a bit of simplification. Or, perhaps, a lot of simplification. I can deal with the idea of a guy finding a
picture in Iraq and feeling that it keeps him alive so he goes in search for
her. I’m fine with her being a bit of a
wreck because she’s still not come to terms with the loss of her loved
one. The rest was just a bit unnecessary,
and the more it piled on the more I started to question the plausibility of
it. I enjoy the two messed up people
meet and, defying the odds, fall in love formula that is Nicholas Sparks. But in The
Lucky One it just falls short of achieving the greatness that some of his
earlier films had.
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