Based on the novel by The Notebook author Nicholas Sparks, and directed by Lasse Hallström, who has successfully gone down this road before with Dear John and Chocolat, Safe Haven opened in Ireland today, targeting the wallets of every couple in the country. While The Notebook may have it's fair share of haters, it is a very good example of the romance genre, with a well told story and a fantastic cast. Sadly, sharing an author is where Safe Haven's similarities with that movie end.
The movie follows Katie (Julianne Hough), a young woman on the run, doggedly pursed by police detective Kevin (David Lyons). Finding herself in the small town of South Port, North Carolina, she tries to make a new life for herself, with her falling for widower Alex (Josh Duhamel) being a happy side effect. But, as is always the case, her old life catches up with her.
With a story that moves at a snails pace, and bland, uninteresting characters, there is a lot wrong with Safe Haven. You never really feel for Katie and Alex, their romance pretty much dead in the water. They are non-characters, never rising above the situations they are burdened with. The fact that the film is full to the brim with romantic cliches doesn't help matters either. The grieving widow? Check. The sickeningly cute kid? There's two of them. The city girl moving to the country? Katie is fresh off the bus from Boston. An initial falling out leads to romance? A gift of a bike doesn't get the expected response. Add to that a heavy handed serving of schmaltz, and it is pretty hard to stomach at times. The actors do try, god bless them, but wooden delivery and cheesy dialogue hinder them at every turn. Hough is pretty darn unlikable at the start. Half way through, it's like there is a switch pressed, and she becomes a completely different person, slightly more tolerable, but no less one dimensional. Duhamel is bland all the way through delivering every line in the same monotone voice. Things take a turn for the better when the story focuses on Lyons, who plays a wonderful bastard. Things look up in the third act, with the story finally going somewhere and Lyons playing an active part, but then there is the final twist. The ludicrous, mishandled, completely out of left field twist. It's the final straw, and is totally out of place with the rest of the film.
Safe Haven could have been a lot better than this, but even with some very talented names behind the camera, this never rises above your typical sappy, date movie material.
The movie follows Katie (Julianne Hough), a young woman on the run, doggedly pursed by police detective Kevin (David Lyons). Finding herself in the small town of South Port, North Carolina, she tries to make a new life for herself, with her falling for widower Alex (Josh Duhamel) being a happy side effect. But, as is always the case, her old life catches up with her.
With a story that moves at a snails pace, and bland, uninteresting characters, there is a lot wrong with Safe Haven. You never really feel for Katie and Alex, their romance pretty much dead in the water. They are non-characters, never rising above the situations they are burdened with. The fact that the film is full to the brim with romantic cliches doesn't help matters either. The grieving widow? Check. The sickeningly cute kid? There's two of them. The city girl moving to the country? Katie is fresh off the bus from Boston. An initial falling out leads to romance? A gift of a bike doesn't get the expected response. Add to that a heavy handed serving of schmaltz, and it is pretty hard to stomach at times. The actors do try, god bless them, but wooden delivery and cheesy dialogue hinder them at every turn. Hough is pretty darn unlikable at the start. Half way through, it's like there is a switch pressed, and she becomes a completely different person, slightly more tolerable, but no less one dimensional. Duhamel is bland all the way through delivering every line in the same monotone voice. Things take a turn for the better when the story focuses on Lyons, who plays a wonderful bastard. Things look up in the third act, with the story finally going somewhere and Lyons playing an active part, but then there is the final twist. The ludicrous, mishandled, completely out of left field twist. It's the final straw, and is totally out of place with the rest of the film.
Safe Haven could have been a lot better than this, but even with some very talented names behind the camera, this never rises above your typical sappy, date movie material.
