Another Nicolas Sparks adaptation arrives hot on the heels of the recently released Dear John, and this one is just as mediocre. Miley Cyrus attempts to break out from goofy tween, to moody emo, playing a not so happy high school graduate who's forced to live with her auld lad and little brother for the summer, after her parents split up and her father moves back to his home town. But alas, there is a reason to smile in the form of Liam Hemsworth's strapping young do-gooder, who takes a liking to Cyrus - despite her having a face like slapped arse for the first half an hour.
Every Sparks' adaptation now has a formula; a fledging romance, with a sprinkling of tragedy. This makes the cinematic incarnations of his work feel like callous manipulations of the audience - essentially cocking a metaphoric gun next to your head and suggesting some tears are in order. It appears to me that he's basically recycling the same story over and over again. While The Notebook had its moments, every other film that's come from his pen tried to disguise terrible characterisation and scattershot, rudimentary plotting with broad, heavy-handed romance. People being in love is nice; people dying is sad; throw the two together and you have yourself a subgenre of epically generic proportions - tromance?
Helmer Robinson attempts to make this film feel different from the others by grabbing a random 14 year old girl, taking her IPod and having it soundtrack the movie. Hemsworth is a likeable enough sort, doing a stellar job of turning his Aussie accent into an American one, while Greg Kinnear spends the majority of the film looking like a guilty puppy, sorry for crapping on the floor. This is firmly a paycheque movie for the latter, while the former should see himself adorn many a schoolgirls wall as heartthrob status beckons.
Cryus is uneven; she can't seem to shake her bad habits of the quirky facial ticks, but pulls off some of the more emotional scenes towards the end with gusto. She will get further opportunities to impress in more mature roles down the line, which is a good thing, given the final product here.