In the
tradition of full disclosure, I must admit that I have not read The Longest Ride
prior to seeing the movie. So this is spotlight is entirely about the movie.
I’ll also
admit that Nicholas Sparks’ books/movies are hit and miss with me. Every one of
his stories has one thing in common…death. And when it comes to main characters
dying…you lose me. Every time. I really hate investing hours in a book or movie
just to have one of the main characters killed off. Know, I know that in real
life, death happens. I’m not naïve and disputing that. But for me, I read
romances as an escape from regular life. They’re fun, feel good books (even the
ones with angst). They let me live lives that I’ll never have (and in some
cases, never want). But I love the HEA at the end. Where things work out and
the characters find the person they’re meant to be with and they have a bright
and shiny future ahead of them. So to spend hours becoming attached and
invested in the lives of characters for them to die…it doesn’t work for me.
Consequently, I don’t read a lot of Nicholas Sparks books.
But I have
seen almost every movie (the exception being The Last Song and Best of Me).
Like I said, they’re hit or miss for me. Nights in Rodanthe and Message in a
Bottle were two I hated. But they’re also two where main characters die at the
end, so there’s no HEA.
I recently
read an article where Nicholas Sparks spoke of being aware that his future
books might be made into movies so he strives to make his books different. (I’m
kicking myself for not saving the article now). The reason I bring this up is
because the comment was playing through my head as I watched The Longest Ride.
It reminded me a lot of The Notebook. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I mean, both have a story revolving around the 1940s-50s and WWII, so it stands
to reason that some comparisons will be made. But there were a couple scenes
that, for me, were almost identical. One was the scenes on the beach (minus the
“I’m a bird, you’re a bird” stuff) and another scene involving a lady with
suitcases. But other than that the stories were different.
Overall, the
movie was good. But I did have an issue. I guess it’s only natural that when a
book/movie has two storylines, you may end up loving one over the other. I
found that to be the case here. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed both, but I found
that the WWII/1940s-50s story about Alan Alda (Hawkeye!)’s character as a young
man much more enjoyable. To me, it just had more depth, like more work had gone
into creating that relationship between the characters, creating a connection
and a story you’re invested in. I enjoyed the story between Scott Eastwood’s
Luke and Britt Robertson’s Sophia but I just never got the sense that the relationship
was developed as much as Ira and Ruth’s was. That’s the other thing. I walked
out of the theater thinking about Ira and Ruth while I couldn’t remember Sophia’s
name (I had to look it up just to write this). The biggest thing that kept me
engaged with their story was Scott Eastwood. Aside from being amazing to look
at (Those
eyes! That smile! *swoon* He even makes cowboys hot and I’m not into cowboys!), he also was completely believable as Luke Collins. I was invested in his career bull riding, his health issues resulting
from past injuries from bull riding and what he would eventually choose. But I
was never invested in Sophia’s story. She was most interesting when she was
talking to Alan Alda’s Ira.
Like I said,
the movie was good. The story between Ira and Ruth was great. Scott Eastwood is
fun to watch and I can’t wait to see him in more movies. Will I watch this
again…yeah. Will I get the DVD….sure. Will I read the book…No. I could read it,
and I’d have a great visual with Scott Eastwood as Luke, but honestly, I have
no desire to. IF the movie is just
like the book, Luke and Sophia’s relationship wasn’t well developed and I don’t
want to sit through that again.
But what I’m
really curious about and the question I’m going to leave you with today is
this: To those of you that have read The
Longest Ride…a) what did you think of the movie compared to the book; b) was
the relationship between Luke and Sophia glossed over in the movie or was it as
underdeveloped in the book?
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