THE LONGEST RIDE Review

I don't know that I've ever reviewed a Nicholas Sparks film on this site before. There often seems no point due to the fact that if you're seeing these movies you know exactly what you want and what you're getting and while that is probably the case here as well, there was something unquestionably intriguing about the tone set by the trailers for The Longest Ride. The musical choices that included Banks "Waiting Game," signaled something of a forbidden, almost haunting love story that might be worth tuning into due to the team behind translating the Sparks story to the screen felt uncommon. It's not out of the question given love stories depend more on the way they're told and the chemistry of the actors involved to be successful than that of the actual story and with director George Tillman Jr. (Soul Food, Notorious, Faster) there certainly seemed potential for something interesting. Love is such an intangible thing it's always difficult to capture the essence of what makes it so special without resorting to cliches and typically that is what Sparks ends up doing. The Longest Ride fortunately doesn't fall prey to the trap of some of the more recent Sparks adaptations in that it doesn't go completely bonkers in the end and makes all kinds of convoluted twists with the only significance being to shock the audience. I haven't seen Safe Haven, but heard it was quite a doozy while I actually caught The Best of Me a few weeks ago and despite the set-up hinting at nothing down the road it became fairly evident where things were heading the moment a couple instances took place one after another. With that in mind, what there is to appreciate about Ride is that it is little more than a basic human story about figuring out priorities and becoming satisfied with a routine that only has a few contrivances forced on it in order to create conflict, but none so outlandish it makes the viewer realize the ridiculousness of it all. It at least feels like an earnest attempt to portray love whereas the majority of the recent Sparks films feel more like cash-grabs capitalizing on manufactured emotions.