Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

What is this strange power that author Nicholas Sparks has over women and a few men? While not all of the films based on his novels have been successful, the ones that have been are actually fairly watchable. The most obvious example of this is THE NOTEBOOK, which I defy any man to sit through without getting just a little weepy. Then we get crap like MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE, A WALK TO REMEMBER, and 2008's NIGHTS IN RODANTHE. They made me weep as well, for very different reasons. The latest Sparks adaptation is DEAR JOHN, which I had expected to hate with the full power of God and all his forces he commands. I did not. It's not a great movie, but it's a movie that surprised me when I had assumed it would be highly predictable and as transparent as a recently Windexed window pane. Under the direction of the usually reliable Lasse Hallstrom (WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE?, THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, CHOCOLAT, CASSANOVA, THE HOAX), DEAR JOHN is not designed to appeal to teen girls as the young cast might lead you to believe, and for that reason alone I gave it an honest shot at moving me.

Channing Tatum plays John Tyree, a young Army man on leave at home with his uncommunicative father (Richard Jenkins), when he meets Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried from MAMMA MIA) at the beach on the Carolina coast. In just a couple of days, they fall in love and promise to wait for each other while he's gone for a year. But when September 11 happens, John decides to reenlist for two more years, and heads home to let Savannah know of his decision. They try to keep things going, but eventually...well, the title of this film isn't just a play on John's name and the fact that the two write letters back and forth constantly. The titular letter, however, comes at about the halfway point in the movie, which surprised me, as did much of what happens after that point.

Also on hand in the film is a fully bearded Henry Thomas (Elliot from E.T.) as Savannah's single-father next-door neighbor Tim, who is quite protective of Savannah but in a friendly way that John immediately takes to, and the two become good friends as well. I don't think I want to reveal too much more of the plot, because the film's secrets are modest but good enough that they are worth keeping. And while I thought DEAR JOHN would be full-on mush and shallow acting from the leads, it's nothing like that at all, especially in the back half of the movie, which is quite emotional. I've seen Tatum play emotionally sensitive muscle man before (including in another Iraq War-era film, STOP-LOSS), and I've always thought the guy pulled it off more often than not. Seyfried's talent, beauty and ability to get just a little deeper into a character than the writing might have called on her to have been her strengths for quite some time. She's the emotional core of this movie in ways I'd both anticipated and ones that truly surprised me.

It would be easy to just cap on this movie by labeling it a chick flick and moving on, but I can't remember the last chick flick that focused so much on the current war and the price couples have paid due to the conflict. DEAR JOHN is not a great movie, but there are a great deal of things to like, more than you might expect or believe. There are far better movies out there right now, but if you get dragged to this, you probably won't suffer. Let's end this by calling this the second-best Sparks-based movie since THE NOTEBOOK and leave it at that.


-- Capone
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