Yet another tearjerker based on a bestselling novel by Nicholas Sparks, The Best of Me spins a tale of doomed romance that shifts back and forth between the past and present. The contemporary segments show oil-rig worker Dawson (James Marsden) and Amanda (Michelle Monaghan), a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage, reuniting after more than two decades. In flashbacks, we see Dawson (Luke Bracey), the shy, abused son of a feral criminal, and Amanda (Liana Liberato), the daughter of a wealthy businessman, as high-school sweethearts whose relationship is ruptured by a violent episode that sends Dawson to prison. Now, brought back together through the funeral of the man who took in Dawson and raised him as his own, the pair embrace their former love, but tragedy again intervenes in a staggeringly mawkish twist. Director Michael Hoffman's The Best of Me features all of the familiar elements of the Sparks formula, from cardboard characters to inane plotting and soap-operatic dialogue, sprinkled with pseudo-profound observations about life and love. It's the sort of cloying junk that gives chick flicks a bad name, made worse by the fact that there is almost no physical similarity between the younger and older versions of the lead characters. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)
The Best of Me
Fox, 118 min., PG-13, DVD: $29.98, Blu-ray: $39.99, Feb. 3 Volume 30, Issue 2
The Best of Me
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