This movie did better than ok (financially) and despite the fact that I considered it to be a religious propaganda film that is typical of Nicholas Sparks, I enjoyed it quite a lot.
I am not one for teen love films or even ones that star whoever the pop star of the day happens to be, but for whatever reason this film worked for me. I am not terribly religious, and i bear no ill will towards the people who are, but i do find it a little bit annoying when there is a hidden message inside of films - and this one has a lot of it - but i still found it compelling and touching.... despite the fact that it is a bit impractical.
Landon is a typical popular high-school kid (played by Shane West) who gets into the usual trouble portrayed in movies by driving cars fast and drinking underage and what not and through a drama class casting situation he ends up in opposite Jaime (played by Mandy Moore,) who is incredibly straight-laced, virtuous, and basically everything that Landon would never be attracted to.
The story involves how they end up getting together in an unlikely (but oh so typical) story of the teen love story from the other side of the tracks.
What makes this special is, honestly, i don't know. I just ended up liking it. I enjoyed the preposterous love story that develops. Nicholas Sparks knows how to pull at your heart-strings and although the story is just completely over the top it ends up being not only good, but really endearing.
Teem films can be annoying. I really hate them for the most part. But i saw this film in the theater, bought it on VHS, and later bought it on DVD. I can't point out anything particularly wonderful about his movie from a cinematography point of view, there probably isn't anything that any critic would be nice about. Since this movie has a Christian religious message in it, Hollywood, being what they are, were always going to slay this movie. But it ended up making 30 million or so and I thought it was great.
I don't really know how to sell this to you. I'm not really trying to do so. I just know that this movie was panned by critics and i found it entertaining. So I guess you could say i disagree with them. I don't think this is a movie that would ever win awards despite the fact that it did win a few (MTV ones that don't matter.)
Whatever, i don't know what else to say. the next movie i recommend will also be a cheesy love story that I can't defend on any sort of artistic measure.