The Best of Me

It’s tempting to make fun of a film like this, but there’s obviously a big audience for adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels, judging by the success of schmaltz-laden efforts such as Safe Haven, The Notebook and A Walk To Remember. This is directed by Michael Hoffman, who’s done better work, especially the brilliant 1991 spoof, Soapdish.

The Best Of Me, ironically enough, isn’t among the best of Sparks’ stories although it has a good cast – Michelle Monaghan and James Marsden as the present-day Amanda and Dawson, and Liana Liberato and Aussie Luke Bracey as their younger selves 20 years earlier. Bracey is appealing but nothing like Marsden so it’s a bit jarring.

The story of star-crossed lovers has many of the usual romance-melodrama ingredients: enduring love against the odds, family betrayal, nostalgia and untimely deaths. But as hard as it tries to be a three-tissue affair, it’s unlikely to cause any tears because it feels so manipulative and in the end pretty unbelievable.

The ‘bad guys’ standing between Amanda and Dawson and their happy-ever-after are one-dimensional bastards who just need moustaches to twirl. The highly improbable climax might provoke laughter rather than tears, especially as the revelation comes several minutes after everyone in the audience has surely worked it out.

In cinemas.