A lot of bull, plus some rodeo action
Same unlikely plot points, little new in Nicholas Sparks’ 10th film adaptation
No less than the “Harry Potter” adaptations or the “Fast and Furious” movies, the novels of Nicholas Sparks form the basis of a consistent film franchise in which the characters’ names and crises and letters-read-aloud voice-overs may change, but it’s the same wish-fulfillment universe across title after title. The public likes what the public likes, even if the public likes some Sparks adaptations more than others.
“The Longest Ride,” the 10th Sparks title to hit the screen with a soft, pretty thud, can be described the way Scott Eastwood (male lead, son of Clint, looks plausible in a cowboy hat) is described in the opening seconds of the movie: “easy on the eyes and a magician on a bull.” The movie is easy on the eyes. And Sparks is a magician with the bull.
From the size of the American flag hanging inside the hero’s farmhouse in “The Longest Ride,” we certainly know which country we’re in, and since it’s Sparks, we acknowledge we’re back in the magical emerald-green kingdom of coastal North Carolina. Eastwood plays a rising young rodeo star, Luke, who gets bucked off a particularly mean bull in the opening minutes. That’s just fate playing matchmaker; there, at the rodeo with her college sorority sisters on the hunt for hot guys, is art history major Sophia, portrayed by Britt Robertson.
It’s love, folks. It’s love, even though Luke doesn’t understand Sophia’s admiration of “squiggly lines on canvas” and pretentious artistic abstraction. This guy’s “old-school” and says so. (“Call me old-school,” he says.) But he’s willing to cross the divide, just as this New Jersey transplant on scholarship wants to fit into Luke’s risky life of bulls and traumatic bull-related head injuries. The courtly, wellmannered hunkdom is a decent trade-off.
Their first date, a lakeside picnic, ends dramatically when they come to the aid of a car accident victim who turns out to be Alan Alda in the role of Ira Levinson, playing a Jewish variation on the life-changing “magical Negro” stereotypes in so many other movies. As he’s pulled from the flames of his wreck, a dazed Ira mutters something about “the box,” which in a Sparks movie can mean one thing only: a stash of precious correspondence the heroine will soon be reading aloud, when the elder character isn’t doing the reading in voice-over narration. Just once in a Sparks movie I wish someone would open a box and find absolutely nothing of value — hardware store receipts, a parking citation, maybe some pencils.
As in “The Notebook,” we have two love stories singing to each other in “The Longest Ride” across the decades. Ira’s life with Ruth, an Austrian World War II refugee played affectingly by Oona Chaplin, begins in 1940 and comes with its full complement of heartbreak. Ruth was an art collector of exquisite taste, which links handily to the present-day story of Sophia and Luke and Sophia’s artistic pursuits.
The director of “The Longest Ride” is George Tillman Jr. (“Soul Food,” “Notorious”), who seems like an odd choice for a Sparks romance. He appears to have gone into this assignment having studied the complete works of Lasse Hallstrom, who directed “Dear John” and “Safe Haven,” two previous Sparks adaptations, for their honey-glow sunsets and utter fraudulence. But that’s not even a criticism with this material; it’s sim- ply a fact.
Tillman has a light but effective touch with his actors. Alda grins and yanks at our heartstrings like the wily pro he is. And it’s nice to see Lolita Davidovich again, playing Luke’s careworn yet ravishing widowed mother, perpetually sitting on the farmhouse porch, waiting for the next scene to begin. Even when Eastwood and Robertson, pleasant enough company, threaten to float off the
screen, “The Longest Ride” glides along and delivers its reheated comfort food by the ton.