Day 365-- Yup, defending Nicholas Sparks movies/ The Lucky One movie review

Chocolate, coffee, smoking, speeding, junk food, procrastinating; we all have our secret vices.  Mine are Nicholas Sparks movies.  Trust me, you do not want to know how many times I've watched the A Walk to Remember, use The Notebook allusions in everyday sentences, and obsess about Dear John and the ending of Message in a Bottle.  

It's embarrassing.

You already know what you're getting when you watch a Nicholas Sparks movie: a kiss in the rain/water, someone important dies, two very attractive if not slightly damaged people fall in love epically and get torn apart in a huge argument, and reconnect in an equally epic way that involves running and/or the rain.  

So why bother?  Because...because cynicism and the hook-up culture hasn't killed us yet, and I think that deep down we hold on to our quiet optimism.  We still want to believe that some day somewhere someone is going to love us so absolutely, and we're going to love them so absolutely free of all irony and sarcasm, and that love will last a lifetime. 

Or maybe we just like the rain.

And for the record, I think that the North Carolina/small town motif is a perfect fit for romantic stories.  In a small town all those distractions of traffic, career, rent, and noise get lost among what's really important: sweet tea with people who love and cotton shirts on warm days.  I mean, can it get much better than that?  Let's be cynical after the movie's over, yeah? Then we can poke fun at the melodramatic dialogue and improbably odds and stupid reasons why the characters split up for awhile, and yes, those flaws are very much there.  

On to The Lucky One review!

Kiss in the rain: check-ish (kiss in outdoor shower)

Someone important dies: check

Two very attractive slightly damaged people who fall in love: check

Briefly torn apart: check

Epic reunion involving running/rain: check

Did I enjoy completely? Oh yes.

Logan is a 3rd tour marine returning home with some lasting effects of PTSD.  He's a feeling lost coming home to his sister's house and isn't quite sure where he belongs in kind of world where he made it out alive when so many of his best mates didn't.  Through the war he's carried around a picture of a beautiful blonde he found in some rubble before an ambush.  This is his lucky charm, and as it helped him make it through the war he is now on the journey to find the girl and tell her thank you.

Cue in Taylor Schilling as Beth Green, the girl in the photo.  Not many people saw her as Dagney in Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 last year, but she holds the same magnetic allure with that hint of chill.  Beth is not a damsel in distress but a single mom trying to run a dog kennel with her grandmother.  She's athletic with a pert beautiful face and she isn't giving Logan an inch.  For his part, Logan doesn't push.  He takes up a job at the kennel and lifts those pales of dog food without complaint or much attention.

Unless your Beth peeking through the window (and we're peeking too.)  Zac Efron, you are grown!  He doesn't overplay Logan as a solider, but remains a dutiful and humble young man.  With killer buff arms....what was I talking about?  Lost my train of thought.

Oh right, sex scenes.  The best sex scenes (and a few of them) than the rest of the Nicholas Sparks movies.  Fan-tastic. 

Logan and Beth never tell each other 'I love you'.  They never leave town or start a war or start a movement.  They are simple together, in an absolute way that only chemistry can explain.

Yes, a lot of the dialogue is cheesy.  Yes, it was stupid for Beth to get so upset about finding out Logan had her picture before they even met.  Yes, the important death felt unnecessary.  But hey, that's what you get with these kind of movies.  And I enjoyed every minute of it.  Call me a girl. ;)