Movie Review: Dear John

What could be more romantic than a long-distance relationship in a young girls’ eyes? The answer is nothing, unless that long distance is caused by war.

In Dear John, John Tyree (Channing Tatum), a Special Forces Army sergeant, is on his two-week leave from his station in Germany. John has a hard time understanding his father, who rarely talks at all and spends a lot of his time collecting and observing coins. While his father is at home collecting coins, John goes to the beach and surfs. One day while John is about to head home, a beautiful college student drops her purse into the ocean from the deck.  John jumps into the water to retrieve it. She greets him at the edge of the water where the dry sand and water meet. He does not quite understand what caused him to jump into the ocean after a purse of somebody he never met and later realizes that this action was, conveniently, caused by love.

She introduces herself as Savannah Curtis (Mamma Mia’s Amanda Seyfried), a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who is there on spring break to help build a house for Habitat for Humanity. She invites John to have a drink with her and her fellow workers. As is to be expected in a Nicholas Sparks story, two weeks is all it takes for John Tyree and Savannah Curtis to fall in love with each other.

At the end of two weeks, Savannah must return to college and John is sent back to his station in Germany. They promise each other that they will write to each other over the next 12 months, until John can leave the army. Time seems like eternity as Savannah and John count down the days until he returns. But then 9/11 happens, and  Savannah starts wondering how long this romance can last after John decides to reenlist. Their love is put to the ultimate test as they struggle to maintain the strong relationship that they had. Yes, the relationship they had during the two weeks that they were on vacation.

Because the novel is an epistolary, the director and producers had the actors read the letters in voice over. This aspect of the film was done well and gave them the opportunity to focus on the actor’s facial reactions as they read the letters.

Viewers, before you go and see this movie, do not set your bars too high. If you are going into the theater with the mindset that this film will be as good as The Notebook, prepare to be disappointed.

Tatum is physically well equipped for the role of John Tyree, but psychologically does not portray enough emotion for his character. Seyfried does a good job emphasizing the emotion of the relationship as she struggles to go through each day wondering if John safely lived through each day. The two actors don’t have the strongest onscreen chemistry, but it occasionally sparks.

Some of the most serious scenes were perceived by the audience as being hilarious. For instance, when John is distressed after visiting Savannah, he cries as he drives home and hits the steering wheel, causing the windshield wipers to turn on. This scene was supposed to reflect the love the two characters still had for each other after all these years, not to make the audience laugh.

Viewers will have to be the ultimate critics of how well the movie went. If you have read the book, then you will be let down by the quickness, intimacy and strength of the characters’ relationship. There were some vital changes made to the script such as Alan, who is Tim’s autistic brother in the novel, but is played by a four year old and plays Tim’s son. The character description of Savannah is not accurate either. In the novel, Savannah is a brunette and has a little gap in between her teeth whereas in the movie, Savannah has wavy blonde hair with a perfect set of white teeth.  

If you have not read the book then you may be a little disappointed at the beginning, but will soon find yourself laughing and drenched in tears.

On opening weekend, Dear John drew $31.5 million kicking Avatar out of the top spot after seven consecutive weeks.