Monday, February 18, 2013

Safe Haven

Before you begin reading I'm going to let you know that this review contains spoilers. Nicholas Sparks definitely has a talent for romantic tales. I appreciated the fact that this story has a dark side to it. Now, I know most of you, like me, know that Sparks includes some sort of darkness to all of his love stories, but I felt like this one was more real. Julianne Hough did a wonderful job throughout the movie as did Josh Duhamel. However, for me the star who stole the show was Mimi Kirkland, the adorable little girl. The love that builds between Hough and Duhamel is expected but Hough and Kirkland took their character expectations to a whole new level. I do not want to leave out the little boy who also did a good job, however I felt like his story was a little excluded. Now, that's the positives of the film.

For the negatives, let's start with the title. Haven literally translates to mean a place of safety. Break that down and the title is Safe Place of Safety. I'm not sure if Sparks anticipated that not many of his moviegoers were smart enough to put that together or if he just thought a one word title wasn't good enough, but none-the-less the title is not a fabulous one. Next, the story line is very cute, which was expected. However, it went a step too far leaving much of the audience asking what just happened, and not in a good way. Spoiler follows here: At the end of the film it is revealed that Jo the nice friend next door who seems to know everything without ever being told is fictional in the mind of Hough's character. In fact she is the ghost(?) of Duhamel's wife who has passed away. There is a beautiful situation throughout the movie having to do with letters that Jo had written while she was alive to her family members. However, it is within these letters that it is revealed who Jo was and I think in that reveal many people will no longer be on board with the film. This huge reveal of who the wife/mother was, was unnecessary and I would have enjoyed the film much more had that part been left out.

I do want to include that Tierney played by David Lyons did a wonderful job of being incredibly creepy which is what his role called for.



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