By: Aiyana Moore ~Staff Writer~

“The Best of Me,” despite being another movie based off of a best-selling Nicholas Sparks book,
failed to wow the audience.

If there’s one common denominator in the Nicholas Sparks movies, it’s that viewers are going to feel a strange mix of happiness and sadness, and “The Best of Me” is no different.

In fact, Sparks manages to jampack so many of these emotions in the short 110-minute film that it almost feels like a rollercoaster ride.

“The Best of Me” does not disappoint in that this predictable movie formula seems to be consistent in Spark’s films. No matter how sad the movie is, viewers know that they can expect the weird, heartwarming feeling that almost immediately follows the tears.

Throughout “The Best of Me,” viewers are given a look into the lives of the poor boy from a bad home, Dawson (James Marsden), and the ambitious rich girl, Amanda (Michelle Monaghan).

Dawson and Amanda, high school sweethearts, are victims of Sparks’s predictable plotline where there are issues waiting around every corner of their relationship, from a death that is revealed in the first 10 minutes of the film to the disapproving parents that are repeated in other Nicholas Sparks films.

Even though many unlucky and, frankly, downright depressing events befall Amanda and Dawson and their relationship, the movie still manages to end on an oddly positive note. As a Nicholas Sparks movie, “The Best of Me” succeeds in telling a cute, romantic story where
viewers smile nearly as much as they cry.

What the movie fails to bring to theaters are deep, relatable characters that move away from
the predictable actions and family ties that are so common in Sparks’s films. This brings up the question, where is the originality?

“The Best of Me” is almost too similar to its predecessors and makes it more obvious that it’s time for something new. If what you’re looking for in Nicholas Sparks’s newest film, “The Best of Me,” is a stereotypical Spark’s movie, then you’re in luck. However, if you’re ready for a new romantic story where the ending isn’t readily obvious and the characters aren’t flat and onedimensional characters, it may be better to look elsewhere.