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My dearest puppies, shimmering seashell wind chimes, deep meaning gazebos, not to mention an unrelenting rainstorm that guarantees the revealing top worn by the starring female is completely drenched and transparent.
One more year prompts yet another journey back to the goofy romantic outpost known as Sparks-landia, a location which purports to sit along the coast of North Carolina, but is actually devoid of logic, destiny is markedly more capricious than usual and every single nature shot seems to be a photoshopped picture postcard. This oasis of imagination, supports, of course, one of the bestselling authors, Nicholas Sparks. Just like the so-called “Twilight” saga and “Fifty Shades of Grey,” they shall not be mistaken for the works of Virginia Woolf and Philip Roth.
Instead, they target very specific groups who get enjoyment from escaping their daily lives in exchange for tales of passionate romances predominantly composed of two or three obstacles that are heartwarming but are simplistic in nature. Nothing wrong with that, well, says a person who has read a shocking number of Sophie Kinsella and Jennifer Weiner books than is deemed healthy.
Yet, what may at first appear benign on paper comes across as both ridiculous and offensive on the big screen. This is certainly the case with “The Choice,” No. 11 on our list of these film adaptations. Whose greatest sin is a conclusion that utterly trivializes one of the most heart-wrenching choices a family member has to go through. No spoiler here, but If you have seen an ad or a trailer, you can pretty much guess what the “choice” is.
It is always fun to see who gets “hired” to direct these, because with this degree of labor, it is obvious that no authorial vision is needed. This time, it is Ross Katz, who was a co-producer on two Oscar nominated Best Picture winners, “In the Bedroom” and “Lost in Translation,” and is the director of HBO’s “Taking Chance.” I guess he lost a bet.
Casting often makes the mush created by marketing this media easier to swallow, a benchmark set by Sparks-landia’s “Citizen Kane,” 2004’s “The Notebook,” which featured soon-to-be mega stars and real life ex-couple Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. However, “The Choice” misses the mark on its central duo way too much and you’ll actually start hoping the blandly annoying couple don’t get together. When they tenderly insult each other by stating, “You bother me,” it is hard not to nod in agreement.
Our lead is Travis (Benjamin Walker, previously seen in “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”), who makes a grand entrance on screen arriving at a hospital on a boat with a bouquet of flowers and a glum expression. Let’s go back 7 years when he seemed to be Wilmington’s most wanted bachelor and gave the ladies a ride on his boat as a pickup line. He encounters an attractive old high school crush who moonlighted around town, so he takes his two married buddy’s boats and goes off to a bar with her.
To be honest, I think Travis is a jerk, which is only further supported by the fact that he holds rambunctious BBQ and beer parties on his front lawn, blasting “Black Betty” by Ram Jam. He certainly doesn’t care much for his newer medical-student neighbor Gabby (who is played by Teresa Palmer) as she sits on her porch with a disgruntled look on her face. When her dog Molly gets pregnant, she makes the embarrassing mistake of calling Travis’ dog Moby the ‘father’, which is something that, frustratingly, reminds me of the movie “Dirty Dancing” more than once.
It’s funny because Moby’s actually neutered. Travis also happens to be a veterinarian, which is convenient because when Gabby reluctantly accepts the help after some puppies are birthed, she slowly begins to warm up to the boy next door. It’s too bad for her that she already has a boyfriend, who just so happens to be a doctor that looks like a ‘human Hummer’. Will he leave for a medical conference? Yes. Will Gabby and Travis stop the childish arguments long enough to get it on? Yes. Does Travis deserve a punch in the nose at the end? Of course.
Let’s break this down first. There is a part where Gabby stays firm to her beliefs of God and goodness while cheating on her fiancé who has proposed to her and plans on having her take the family business started by his doctor father, which is a case of flagrant cognitive dissonance. In fact, she does not tell him about the predicament until she is made to. Why should we celebrate her and Travis when she is so frivolously careless?
Nonetheless, the wedding does happen, babies do come and then, bang, something terrible happens because this is Sparks-landia. But what do you expect from a film that shows the passing of time through pregnant bellies, uses cellphone messages as aids, and incorporates a cheap cemetery bluff?
And before we leave Sparks-landia, let me bemoan the casting of one actor who has always been a favorite of mine since The Full Monty. Every Sparks venture needs an older and presumably wiser counterpart, in this case it is Tom Wilkinson as Travis’s vet widowed father who happens to be one of the more universal sellers.
The British actor’s chores here looking after poorly lizards, lightly flirting with a dog owner’s charming girlfriend, and supervising a church choir performing Joe Cocker’s “Feelin’ Alright,” could easily be done by someone of a lower status than him. Nonetheless, I was baffled by one part of Wilkinson’s portrayal. If a man’s voice is so thickly accented as Travis’s southern drawl to the point that he spews grits, why does his father sound like an accent-less Englishman trying really hard to hide his accent?
Everybody has a decision to make this weekend while trying to find something interesting to do. So long as you do not have an overwhelming desire to witness the phrase “take a knee” being irresponsibly connected to a marriage proposal, you probably would not want to go watch “The Choice” either.
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