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Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
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Romance fails to light up the screen
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EVER since “The Notebook” made moviegoers swoon in 2004, Nicholas Sparks’ name has been synonymous with teary-eyed romance.
The author’s latest novel adapted for the big screen, “The Longest Ride,” is no exception, offering two love stories at once. But the most heartfelt affair here isn’t between its impossibly good-looking stars; it’s shared by a couple 70 years their senior through a story told in flashbacks.
Sophia (Britt Robertson) and Luke (Scott Eastwood) comprise the younger pair. She’s an art-history student at North Carolina’s Wake Forest University with plans to work in a New York gallery. He’s a competitive bull rider trying to claim the national title. They meet when her friends persuade her to go to the rodeo. He’s in the ring, and during a stunt, his cowboy hat flies off and lands right in her lap.
A convoluted and unrealistic set of circumstances lead them to meet Ira (Alan Alda), a widowed curmudgeon who clings to a collection of love letters he wrote to his late wife. It is through these letters that the young couple, and the audience, learns about Ira’s love affair with Ruth. Told through extended flashbacks, the young Ira (Jack Huston) and Ruth (Oona Chaplin) share the kind of romance that movies are made for.
While ostensibly meant to illustrate the timeless nature of romance, the richness of this relationship makes its modern foil seem superficial by comparison.
Eastwood is a fitting cowboy with a touch of his dad Clint’s famous swagger. He’s believable as a bull-rider, and shows enough vulnerable charm to be a romantic leading man.
The cherubic, pillow-lipped Robertson makes for a fine potential partner. She’s pretty and sweet, yet headstrong.
Both are easy on the eyes, but lack the fireworks, and just plain fire, to be a truly convincing on-screen romance.
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