© 2014 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.
1.5/4 Stars
Rated PG-13
Starring Britt Robertson and Scott Eastwood
Directed by George Tillman Jr.
Nicholas Sparks has discovered the formula for becoming a commercially successful novelist. The Longest Ride is his 17th bestseller and the 10th to be adapted for the screen. Sparks’ books and their adaptations are consistently melodramatic, overwrought and replete with absurd denouements. The Longest Ride is no exception.
Since Message in a Bottle first brought Sparks to the silver screen, adaptations of his novels have become progressively worse. The last two, Safe Haven and The Best of Me were particularly atrocious. You know that a film is in trouble when the most compelling performance comes courtesy of a bovine creature. Such is the case with The Longest Ride. Rango the Bull is a demonic rodeo fixture who outshines his human counterparts.
What makes this particularly noteworthy is the fact that the cast includes the progeny of two film icons. Scott Eastwood is the son of Clint Eastwood, while Oona Chaplin is the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin.
Set in North Carolina, The Longest Ride revolves around an unlikely young couple and their relationship with an elderly man. Sophia Danko (Britt Robertson) is a co-ed at Wake Forest University. She lives in an upscale sorority house, contending that it has the least expensive accommodations on campus. Sophia is a serious-minded student, who is attending college on a scholarship. She loves art, particularly the abstract variety. Sophia has lined up a dream internship at a prestigious art gallery in New York City.
Undaunted by the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door of Sophia’s room, her fun-loving sorority sister, Marcia (Melissa Benoist), intrudes. Marcia insists that Sophia join her at a local rodeo. Sophia’s protests that rodeo isn’t her thing. Besides, she needs to study. As Marcia contends, there is no need for Sophia to remain obsessively focused on the academic grind.
Sophia begrudgingly relents, even donning a pair of cowgirl boots that Marcia provides for the occasion. While there, Sophia has a chance encounter with Luke Collins (Eastwood), a hunky bull-rider. After being bucked from a bull, he had sustained a severe head trauma. Now, Luke is trying to stage a comeback so that his mother (Lolita Davidovich) can hold onto the family ranch.
When Sophia meets Luke again at a local bar, the two have a pleasant interchange. What chance do the two lovebirds have to overcome their differences and forge a harmonious relationship?
Returning from their first date, Luke notices a broken guardrail. He pulls over to investigate. On the other side of the guardrail, Luke discovers a crashed car. He valiantly rescues an unconscious man from the wreck, just before it bursts into flames. The driver, Ira Levinson (Alan Alda), is a cranky nonagenarian. While Ira is recovering in the hospital, Sophia and Luke frequently visit him. Ira recounts his decades-long love affair with his wife, Ruth. In flashbacks, we witness the courtship, circa 1940, between Ira (Jack Houston in flashbacks) and Ruth (Chaplin). Ruth and her Jewish family have fled Vienna to escape Nazi persecution. Ruth harbors culturally refined sensibilities, including a passion for modern art. She disparages Ira as a “country pumpkin.” The starkly different backgrounds of Ira and Ruth mirror those of Luke and Sophia. Will the younger couple draw any lessons from Ira’s anecdotal fodder? You don’t need to be Nostradamus to accurately predict where this is headed.
