Two weepies for the price of one in The Longest Ride, the latest film from the pen of Nicholas Sparks
REVIEW: The world doesn’t really need another Nicholas Sparks movie — but with The Longest Ride, at least audiences are going to know exactly what they will get.
Leigh Paatsch
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The Longest Ride (M)
Director: George Tillman Jr. (Soul Food)
Starring: Britt Robertson, Scott Eastwood, Alan Alda, Jack Huston, Oona Chaplin.
Rating: **
A sight for saddle-sore eyes
The world doesn’t really need another movie drained from the tanks of romantic sludge-merchant Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, Dear John, Safe Haven etc.).
Nevertheless, the world is gonna keep getting drenched by these tissue-soaking weep-fests until demand finally dries up.
There’s been enough of them already for you to have figured out your own way to either avoid or embrace them. Nothing about The Longest Ride will change all that.
The golden rule in Sparks’ gilt-edged formula for success is to frame events around a young couple making all the wrong choices in all the right ways.
In what could be construed as an absolute bargain in some circles, The Longest Ride serves up two panting pairings for the price of one.
In the present day, it’s all about Sophia (Britt Robertson) and Luke (Scott ‘Son of Clint’ Eastwood).
She is a dedicated arts student who dreams of running her own gallery one day.
He is a decorated rodeo rider who is on the comeback trail after getting trampled by Rango, the meanest bucking bull in America.
In the distant past, it’s all about Ruth (Oona Chaplin) and Ira (Jack Huston).
She was a beautiful Jewish refugee who made it out of Europe just as World War II was hotting up.
He was a simple shopkeeper’s son who was just about to marry Ruth when — yep, you guessed it — he was drafted and deployed to Europe to fight in World War II.
So what is it that links together these two couples from two disconnected time frames? (Aside from politely and passionlessly making love as if auditioning for a movie titled 50 Shades Of Beige?)
Well, on the way home after a moonlight picnic, Sophia and Luke rescue the elderly Ira (played by Alan Alda) from a flaming car wreck.
Just as the vehicle is about to explode, Sophia retrieves a little wicker basket full of all the love letters Ira wrote to Ruth all those years ago.
Once old Ira is up to taking visitors in hospital, Sophia visits him regularly to read aloud from his achy-breaks correspondence collection.
Meanwhile, Luke drifts in and out of the picture as he prepares himself for an inevitable confrontation with the hoofed demon that is Rango the bull.
Speaking of bull, I sincerely wish we could discuss the closing minutes of The Longest Ride, which are absolutely insane, even by Sparks’ crazy-coincidence standards.
Seriously, Sparks is a proven master of the face-planting finale, and as per usual, he continues to bravely venture where the logical fear to tread.
Originally published as Two weepies for the price of one in The Longest Ride, the latest film from the pen of Nicholas Sparks
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