In order for any tearjerker to work, you have to be invested in the characters. You have to care about what happens to them, about how their love will endure through crisis and change, and most importantly, if they remain together in the end, or if fate (or the unfair hand of same) steps in to ruin your need for romantic closure. In this regard, the latest adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel, The Longest Ride, kind-of, sort-of works. However, it’s the only element in this overblown, inflated manipulation that does.
You see, we care about professional bull rider Luke Collins (Scott Eastwood, looking hunky) and his burgeoning fling with college art major Sophia Danko (Britt Robertson). He’s attempting a comeback after a year off due to injury. She’s about to graduate and looks forward to starting her career as an intern in the Big Apple. When their worlds collide, we sense the chemistry. As the formulaic elements of their relationship ebb and flow, we follow suit. By the time their love is tested — albeit in one of the hokiest ways possible — we hope that they will end up together.
But Luke and Sophia are only part of the story, and an insignificant part at that. The majority of this miserable experience plays out in the past, with an old man (Alan Alda) relating his courtship and marriage to his late wife to our youngster. While on their first date, our duo rescues Ira Levinson from a car crash, saving a box full of letters, as well. In them, we learn of how the pre-war version of the character (Jack Huston) met and fell for Austrian immigrant Ruth (Oona Chaplin). They are both Jewish, and she and her family barely escape Europe with their lives.
They go through the standard Southern courtship (the movie is set in North Carolina), with the bombing of Pearl Harbor Ira’s cue to enlist. While in battle, he suffers a severe wound. To make matters worse, he develops an infection which renders him sterile. This destroys Ruth, since all she wants is a big family. Still, they get married and settle into their lives. While he works at his father’s business, she teaches school, collects art, and dreams of bigger things. When a young boy in her class shows signs of neglect, Ruth sees a chance at motherhood. When his abusive parents take him back, she is destroyed again.
Thus continues the convoluted plot contrivances of Sparks’ overloaded narrative. The author is the king of the story mechanism, frequently needing such help to get his characters out of self-created dead ends. Ruth and Ira can’t have kids? Enter the waif-ish hillbilly boy. Luke’s medical condition suggests he stop riding, but how can he when his family farm is nearing foreclosure? Oh, and let’s not forget the possibility that our sound looking stud is just “one accident” away from paralysis, or death. And what about Sophia? If she doesn’t make it to New York and her new opportunity, her future is over. So naturally she becomes overly invested in her boy toy’s own career choices.
It’s all so inane and illogical. Ira is a decent man, but the woman he married has clearly lied to him. She says it’s okay that they can’t have kids — and then actually walks out on him when they can’t. When she returns, she play-acts at marriage, losing herself in her love of contemporary art. Said aesthetic appreciation is just a MacGuffin, however, used to cement a last act twist that is so unbelievable that you wonder how anyone in the legal profession would have allowed it. Like a tossed salad dosed in inedible dressing and loaded with less than fresh ingredients, the viewer is forced to pick through The Longest Ride, looking for something palatable.
On the plus side are Eastwood and Robertson. They have an easy chemistry, which never pushes their blossoming love on the audience. Instead, we see it grow as organically as it can — that is, until Sparks needs more story to forward his page-turning aims. Then, scenes of trips to the hospital and gallery showdowns arrive to keep us stringing along. Still, they look good together and do everything they can to overcome the source material’s stupidity. If they were the sole focus of The Longest Ride, we’d have a significantly better, and shorter, movie.
But no, Sparks can’t leave well enough alone. We are constantly flashing back, watching as Huston and Chaplin (John’s grandson and Charlie’s granddaughter) prove that legacy skips a generation. He is decent, playing the proverbial doormat with relative ease. She, on the other hand, is horrid, a true harpy unable to control her obvious selfish streak. All the WWII stuff is mere allusion, as there’s no outright discussions about the Nazis or The Holocaust. Instead, Ruth gets one line of motivation: she wants a family to bring more life back to a world mired in death. That’s it. We’re supposed to hang onto that as a means of caring. It doesn’t work.