REVIEW: Safe Haven

Courtesy of Relativity

Safe Haven, the newest Nicholas Sparks adaption about pretty people kissing in the rain, is a curious little flick. For most of its running time, the story is practically indistinguishable from everything else the author has written. Yet there are a couple of jarring subplots that attempt to change up the formula most of us know by heart at this point.

It’s like Sparks suddenly got tired of using the FIND and REPLACE keys to change character names and what kind of cancer they die from, so he decided to rip off Sleeping with the Enemy instead. If that’s not enough, there’s a whacked-out twist in the last five minutes that rockets the material from mediocre romantic drama into “is this seriously about to happen?…oh my God, this is happening!...I can’t believe that actually happened!” territory. Obviously I can’t talk about that part, even though it’s the only aspect worthy of conversation.

Instead, I’ll focus on the obvious. Katie (played by former Dancing with the Stars hoofer Julianne Hough), a beautiful young woman on the run after fleeing an abusive relationship, steps off a bus into a picturesque seaside town in North Carolina. She immediately runs into Alex (Josh Duhamel, from the Transformers franchise), a handsome widower – guess how his wife died – with two small kids and no discernible flaws whatsoever.

The two fall in love within a few scenes and Katie even becomes BFFs with her next-door neighbor (Cobie Smulders, from How I Met Your Mother). Before viewers can ask, “wow, are all domestic violence victims this trusting in a new town?” the focus shifts to a glowering Boston cop (David Lyons) who is determined to track Katie down.

Director Lasse Hallstrom (who used to make thought-provoking films like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) seems far more at ease with the scenes of beautiful, sun-drenched people falling in love than he does with the thriller elements, likely because Hough and Duhamel are nothing if not photogenic. Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis don’t need to watch their backs or anything, but the two leads’ performances are decent enough.

But again, that’s not what people who see this flick will be talking about on their way to the parking lot. It all comes down to that ludicrous twist, which raises dozens of questions and makes once-friendly characters seem downright sociopathic in hindsight. I don’t think that’s what Sparks or the filmmakers had in mind.

Safe Haven is rated PG-13 for thematic material involving threatening behavior, and for violence and sexuality.

Grade: C-