Dear John

If taken for what it is (and Sparks’ name in the credits should be the appropriate expectation-setter), this actually works, and works quite well, up to a point – my confessed soft spots for Seyfried, Tatum and hell even Sparks, meshing with my genuine admiration for Jenkins, meant I could buy in to the schmaltz as I watched a Harlequin romance play out with a reasonable degree of style and pizazz, aided by the charismatic work from Seyfried and Tatum, and Hallstrom’s quiet, non-showy direction. Ironically, it’s the formula itself not executing correctly that takes the film off-course in the later stages – treading to avoid spoilers, but the romantic rival arrives from the most unexpected (and not especially convincing) place, we are presented with two deaths that really land with no impact at all, and are left with an odd, subdued finale which feels unable to commit to any version of where this story might have been heading, and leaving the film feeling flat and underwhelming (lacking any spark, you might say). A minor disappointment in ways I wasn’t expecting!