Signis

The Lucky One

(JPEG)

US, 2012, Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling, Blythe Danner, Directed by Scott Hicks.

For over twenty years, audiences have enjoyed the emotional and romantic film versions of novels by Nicholas Sparks. They range from Message in a Bottle to The Last Song, a star vehicle for Miley Cyrus. The most popular has been The Notebook. The recent Dear John had a war theme. So does The Lucky One.

Opening in Iraq with an ambush and deaths, the film sets a contemporary tone. Logan (Zac Efron) survives, especially when he notices a photo in the rubble and picks it up, just missing being killed by an explosive device. He is nervous during convalescence with his sister and her children and decides to identify the lighthouse in the photo - which takes him to Louisiana.

All might have been simple had he been able to explain why he had come. The woman in the photo, Beth (a sympathetic Taylor Schilling) thinks he is odd but her feisty mother (Blythe Danner) hires Logan to work in their business of walking and caring for dogs (something of a treat for dog-loving audiences). Beth is divorced from the local policeman, son of the local mayor, who has spent his life trying to match his father’s expectations, and not succeeding. She also has a son.

As expected, Logan bonds with the son, works hard with the dogs, lives a quiet and reflective life, falls in love with Beth and is threatened by the husband. As expected, there has to be something of a crisis when Beth learns the truth about Logan. This is more melodramatic than anticipated.

As with Sparks’ other stories, there is a special communication that is at the core of the story whether it be a message in a bottle, a notebook, letters to Dear John, a song or, in this case, the original photo and another which leads to some kind of reconciliation and peace.

Zac Efron is very nice and gets audience sympathy and the hope that there will be a happy ending, which, of course, is the natural outcome of this kind of wide-audience-friendly film.

Peter Malone