Movie Review
??
THE CHOICE
Directed by Ross Katz. Written by Bryan Sipe, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. Starring Benjamin Walker, Teresa Palmer, Maggie Grace, Tom Welling, Tom Wilkinson. Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs. 111 minutes. PG-13 (sexual content, some thematic issues).
There seems to be a movie with some poignant depth trying to break through in Bryan Sipe’s adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’s “The Choice.’’ It’s there in the aching dilemmas that the story builds toward, the dramatically ripe character dynamics. You can sense it in the way that the leads, unconventionally charismatic Benjamin Walker and Aussie actress Teresa Palmer, take hold of an offbeat proposal scene and moments of tearful yearning. Same for the way that they energetically throw themselves at the pages and pages of lesser, clumsy material, trying for better.
In the end, though, the film disappointingly, even lazily, shies away from being anything more than you’d expect. The agonizing decision of the deceptively mundane title is enough to render a theater completely silent — but ultimately, with the way that director Ross Katz (“Adult Beginners’’) and screenwriter Sipe stick to their source, there’s no real choice made at all.
Walker (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’’) plays Travis, a Southern charmer leading a glossily shot existence on the North Carolina coast, all boat outings with friends and rib eyes on the grill back at his shoreline cottage. The racket from all this easy livin’ draws the animated ire of fussy med student Gabby (Palmer, “Warm Bodies’’), Travis’s new neighbor. She hates the noise, she hates his twangy flirting, she hates his dog for leaving hers ready to pop with pups. (We repeat: clumsy.) Yep, Gabby and Travis sure bother each other — so obviously it’s true love, as his sister (Maggie Grace) and his old fallback girl (Alexandra Daddario) both point out to him. And to anyone who doesn’t know Movie Rules.
For all the sun-drenched lusting and canoodling by starlight, the story finds its comfort zone as things get uncomfortable for the characters. There’s a nicely developed thread in Travis’s relationship with his kindly veterinarian father (Tom Wilkinson), and the gradual reveal of their differing responses to tragedy. Then there’s Gabby’s paralyzing cluelessness about how to tell Ryan (Tom Welling), the doctor she’s been dating, that she’s fallen for Travis.
In the wake of Gabby’s eventual confession and, later, a jarring emergency, Travis and the jilted doc have to navigate some awkwardly shared emotional space. It’s a dynamic that could be fascinating if the story made more of it, something deeper. But as the filmmakers clearly remind themselves at every turn, this is a Sparks weepie, and there’s no messing with the brand.
??
THE CHOICE
Directed by Ross Katz. Written by Bryan Sipe, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. Starring Benjamin Walker, Teresa Palmer, Maggie Grace, Tom Welling, Tom Wilkinson. Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs. 111 minutes. PG-13 (sexual content, some thematic issues).
Tom Russo can be reached at trusso2222@gmail.com.
