CAST: Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling,
Blythe Danner, Jay Ferguson; DIRECTOR: Scott Hicks; SCREENWRITER:
Will Fetters based on novel by Nicholas Sparks; EDITOR:
Scott Gray; MUSIC: Mark Isham, Hal Lindes; GENRE: Drama; CINEMATOGRAPHER:
Alar Kivilo; DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Brothers; LOCATION: USA; RUNNING
TIME: 101 minutes
Technical Assessment: 3.5
Moral Assessment: 2.5
Cinema rating: For viewers 14 years old and
above
An Iraq War veteran searches for the woman from a mysterious photo that he credits with saving his life during three
tours of duty in this romantic drama adapted from the book by Nicholas
Sparks. U.S. Marine sergeant Logan Thibault (Zac Efron) was serving his
country overseas when he happened across a discarded photo of a
beautiful woman. An inscription on the back read "Keep Safe," yet the
photo revealed no clues about either the subject or her whereabouts.
Upon returning home to civilian life, Logan conducts his own research
and discovers that the woman's name is Beth (Taylor Schilling) and that
she cares for dogs at a small-town kennel. Before long, Logan manages to
get a job at the kennel, and sets his sights on winning Beth's heart.
But it won't be easy because Beth's past experiences have made her wary
of relationships. Meanwhile, as Logan works to earn Beth's trust, a dark
secret from her past threatens to derail his hope for a happy future
together
The Lucky One is the product of the imagination
which also brought to the movie world Message in a Bottle and The Notebook. That told, the viewer would know what to
expect, more or less, from this romantic escapist number, based on the novel by
Nicholas Sparks. While the plot is
predictable, the movie tries to strike a balance between sheer coincidence (as
the title implies) and stark reality.
There is enough chemistry between Efron and Schilling to make their
sizzling scenes credible, though the characters are familiar stereotypes: the
precociously clever son Ben (Riley Thomas Stewart); the wise grandmother Ellie (Blythe Danner)
who can spot good husband material at first glance; the ex-husband Keith (Jay
R. Ferguson) a bully of a cop with inferiority issues. The cinematography is appropriate to the genre,
and the location is an enviable setting for a coincidence-laden romance whose
foundational elements are the woods with a brook in the backyard, sunlit days
of bathing dogs, a placid lade for rowing and chatting, and a lifestyle that
thrives on meeting the characters’ simple needs.
The Lucky One would have deserved the PG-13 rating
given by the MTRCB if the bed scenes had been pruned considerably or treated
with more subtlety. Even if other
critics might say “But this is America”—where premarital sex is almost de
rigeur—still CINEMA would classify The Lucky One as an adult movie . The one character here that exhibits an
unexpected but acceptable change is Beth’s ex, Keith, who switches from
insufferable bully to lifesaving father.
Credit goes to Ferguson’s sensitive acting—as a bully you’d wish a
bigger bully would teach him a lesson, but when he softens watching his son
playing the violin with a man he is jealous of, and then switches back to being
a bully the next scene, you could see a bad man wanting to be good but can’t
become one as yet. The viewer can
resonate with this conflicted character because he is so close to being
real.
