Josh Duhamel is generically fixing things so that we know he is handy.This is not second-watch Court spoilers, this is obvious in a way that he might as well be wearing an "I AM JULIANNE HOUGH'S CREEP HUSBAND" sticker on his shirt. Scary cop man with minimal eyebrows is looking for Julianne Hough and I will tell you it's her husband.Like that is an unreal sink cut, so much so that it’s the most fantastic element of the film even after the reveal I will not yet discuss. She mysteriously knows Julianne Hough moved to A Carolina to get some peace and quiet and to hide from something mysterious but mostly Julianne Hough’s hair looks amazing. Cobie Smulders is wandering around Julianne Hough’s house like a beautiful perfect creep.Like, look, clearly I know there’s a genre element to this movie or I wouldn’t be doing this, but the magic grocery store actually isn’t it. This is a normal thing in a normal place that is normal. They sell basmati rice like all convenience/hardware/paint stores do.She goes to Josh Duhamel's store of groceries, coffee, paint, hardware, and Specific Julianne Hough Needs to purchase things from a very small childgirl.Julianne Hough, who is clearly traumatized, immediately falls in a hole because THE BLONDE LADY HAS NOT BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH I GUESS.She immediately finds a perfect adorable forest house WITH WAINSCOTTING.In additional fairness, we barely saw the beginning of this movie. There is a coffee shop/fish shop/beach diner where Julianne Hough is all "can I work here" and gets spooked by a coffeemaker because PTSD and owner lady is all "HA we have fun here." In fairness, she didn't see the beginning of the movie.Presumably because the filmmakers were like “oops, we hired a dancer.” Julianne Hough has not yet spoken this entire movie.This film was directed by legit outstanding director Lasse Hallström.Julianne Hough and her flawless dye job that in no way occurred in a neighbor’s sink falls immediately in love with some manner of Carolina and stays there. ![]() Josh Duhamel isn’t even the rich man’s Josh Duhamel.I think a lot about how the first big-BIG Nicholas Sparks movie had Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling and how everything that followed has been decreasingly and decreasingly budget iterations of Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling.Then it’s all soft music and a Carolina of Some Kind because that’s how Nicholas Sparks do. I say this all very quickly both because this is a woman in trauma and I don’t want to mock her pain, but also because THIS IS LITERALLY HOW QUICKLY THE MOVIE DOES THIS.She is slammed into by off-brand Richard Jenkins with a ponytail.We see Julianne Hough running in a very obvious wig.It’s a terrible thing to do to your Valentine. But Hough ends every assault on Katie, be it attempted rape or murder, with a delicious crinkle of her nose that signals all traumas can be solved with the right,makeup, hair and lighting. I hate the Sixth Sense vibe that attempts to energize a film that died soon after the opening credits. I hate, to the point of despising, the friendship Katie develops with Jo (Cobie Smulders), a neighbor no one else in town seems to mention. I hate how Hallstrom arranges them like he’s shooting a spread for smallo-town Vogue. No human emotion seems to register on their perfect faces for more than a second at a time. ![]() ![]() I hate the blandness of Hough and Duhamel as actors. I hate the intolerably cutsey dialogue that draws this Ken and Barbie together. As time wears on and on, I keep ignoring Katie’s fate and wondering where she and Alex go to get their highlights. Worse then that, Katie hides out in an impossibly picturesque fishing village in North Carolina, where she right away meets Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widower with two kids and a gym-toned body no one else in town possesses. And yet Hough, an inexhaustibly perky actress, manages to keep smiling. I mean, you have to hate this story: Katie (Julianne Hough) has fled Boston by bus, with a psycho cop (David Lyons) and a first-degree murder rap nipping at her heels. I hate how nothing about Safe Haven makes sense. I hate that Lasse Hallstrom, the indisputable talent behind My Life As a Dog, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and The Cider House Rules, got suckered into directing this swill. You want titles? Try Dear John, The Last Song and The Lucky One. I hate the way Sparks-inspired films have gotten exponentially worse since 2004’s The Notebook. I hate the way Hollywood insults audiences by deciding a film version of a Nicholas Sparks bestseller is what audiences need for Valentine’s week. How much do I hate this movie? Let me count the ways.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |