Safe Haven

Every year just around Valentine’s day a book by Nicholas Sparks that has been made into a movie comes out, this year it’s ‘Safe Haven’. This is the second movie this week that is set in the South of the U.S.; the landscapes are quite beautiful, making any of us want to move to this enchanted place. Yes the main two actors are major eye candy, but there’s not much more to them than that. The problem with this sort of movies is that they all stick to the same formula leaving very little to the imagination and even less that would surprise an audience. For anyone who is going to watch this movie you know what to expect and if you like your corniness, mediocre acting and predictable ending this one for you.

 

Katie (Julianne Hough) runs away from her mysterious and what seems like tragic life and randomly ends up in Southport, North Carolina where she starts a new life. Here she meets Alex (Josh Duhamel) a widower with two children that is quickly smitten by Katie without knowing what he’s getting into.

 

This movie is filled with awkward and uninteresting conversations due to a poorly written script and unskillful acting. There are plenty of moments that don’t seem to fit with the rest of the film and at the end just with a little analyzing you realize how little they paid attention to detail. It is extremely overdramatic to make a point on who the bad guy is, while also using a lot of unnecessary drama to move the story along. All the romantic moments are completely predictable making them loose their charm.

 

Hough seems to not know how to react to a lot of things in the film, making her a bad actress. I don’t blame her completely since the script itself seems bipolar making her antisocial one second and completely nice the next without a real reason. Duhamel’s character seems so lonely that he inexplicably goes after this girl without much vision in a way a teenage boy would.

 

The movie ignores reality and sense in some occasions making it all the more surreal and unbelievable. Tierney (David Lyons) is almost superhero like surpassing obstacles a normal person wouldn’t, while always looking tense and crazy. There is one unexpected twist, which did surprise me, but besides that there’s not much mystery in the movie.

 

This is more like a TV movie that would play on Lifetime, I understand during this time of the year many people want to go see romantic movies, but I wouldn’t recommend you spend your money on this one. Just like Lasse Hallstrom‘s last romantic attempt ‘Dear John’, this is a love story that you easily forget once you walk out the theater.