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| Directed by Micheal Hoffman Written by J. Mills Goods, Will Fetters, and Micheal Hoffman |
The Best of Me is one of those movies where there isn't much to talk about. It's a sad, somewhat tragic romance story laser-focused on the wallets of older, middle class married couples on their night out. While it's a perfectly good version of exactly what it aims to be, there isn't much to make it stand out among a plenitude of similar movies.
Adapted from a novel of the same name by one Nichols Sparks, our story concerns one Dawson Cole, a high school senior with an interest in physics that has the misfortune of coming from a backwoods, redneck family in the middle of the Louisiana back country. He's also a mechanic, which helps him when he helps a well to do young woman by the name of Amanda Collier with car trouble, and falls in love at first sight. Unfortunately for them, Dawson's father doesn't want his son putting on airs of being better/smarter than his pap, and Amanda's father doesn't want her associating with apparent white-trash (that's not me, the boy's family calls themselves that) and they must stay apart...
...until Dawson's father gets abusive one night, and runs away to break into his uncle Ted's house to live with him. He's alright with him seeing Amanda, but Dawson's pap definitely isn't and pays him a visit in the one scene where The Best of Me comes to life. As the elder Coles show up to repossess their son, Ted comes out with a shotgun and tells them to back off. When they refuse, he fires at the windshield of their pickup truck and informs them that it will cost around a thousand dollars in repairs. He does this again with the floodlights, five hundred dollars each. Nearly the entire audience at my press screening cracked up at this, myself included.
They have a relationship, and twenty years later they've moved on. Dawson has become an oil driller, and Amanda works for a non-profit legal firm defending child's rights. They are reunited when they learn that their benefactor Ted has passed away, and left their old cabin to them. Will they decide that they are content with their current lives, or that their childhood fling really was destiny?
There really isn't much for me to say. It's well shot, acted well, there aren't any plot holes to discuss, but there isn't any there there, if you know what I mean. There are some other films that came out this year that I was reminded of, in particular The Fault In Our Stars and If I Stay, but The Best of Me lacks the former's genuine indie charm and the latter's cinematographic flare.
The Best of Me comes out in the US on October 17th, and while I'm told that many women are looking forward to it, I can't think of a reason why this needs to be seen in a theatre. It's more or less a really good Lifetime original movie, and when it ends up in syndication on that channel, it will be worth leaving on in the background.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
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