Starring: Scott Eastwood, Britt Robertson, Alan Alda, Oona Chaplin, and Jack Huston
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox
Runtime: 128 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2015
| 
| 
This American romantic drama is based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. It tells the story of a young couple, set to take different paths and finding inspiration through their encounter with an elderly man, who reminisces nostalgically on his life and past love.
Luke Collins (Scott Eastwood) is a former bull-riding champion and is determined to make a comeback in “the toughest sport on dirt”. Sophia Danko (Britt Robertson) is a talented art student, and she has accepted an internship at a prestigious Art Gallery in New York City. At the last minute, Sophia decides to accompany a friend to the Bull Riding Circuit, where she accidentally meets Luke, and they are immediately attracted to each other.
The relationship between Luke and Sophia develops, and Sophia tells Luke that she is about to take up a position in New York City in two months time. For them both, their attraction to each other is “bad timing”. Their worlds are going in different directions, and both are tested by what they have decided to do.
Along the road on which they are travelling on a rainy night, they meet Ira Levinson (Alan Alda) who has crashed his car. Ira is 91 years old, lonely and ill, and his wife, Ruth, died nearly a decade earlier. Struggling to maintain consciousness on the side of the road, Ira urges Sophia to rescue a box on the seat of his burning car. The box contains letters that tell of his life with Ruth. They are all that Ira has to convey Ruth’s words to him and his memories of her. His story starts before World War II, and he shares his memories with Sophia. Luke and Sophia stopped to help Ira, and saved his life by pulling him out of his car, but Ira’s memories begin to change their lives.
Back in hospital, Ira develops a special bond with Sophia, who reads Ruth’s letters to him. Sophia discovers that young Ruth (Oona Chaplin) and young Ira (Jack Huston) have lived a life that shares much in common with the challenges that she and Luke now face. Young Ruth loved Art and was independent, and Ira loved Ruth shyly and totally without question. Oona Chaplin and Jack Huston play the young lovers with tenderness, warmth, and spontaneity.
This is a film about two intertwining love stories, separated by experience and age. The contrast between the two stories is meaningful. The relationship between Ira and Ruth lives on in Ira’s recollections about what has happened, and the relationship between Luke and Sophia exists in promise and possibility, yet to be fulfilled. Ira’s memories give Luke and Sophia the strength to face the meaning of their attachment to each other. Ira’s is a love that has richly endured. “The Longest Ride” for Luke and Sophia lies obviously ahead.
The film is unashamedly romantic, and the movie is geared sentimentally to appeal strongly to teenagers. Both Luke and Sophia are driven to succeed and have ambition, but Eastwood (the son of Clint Eastwood) and Robertson act their parts well to demonstrate youthful vulnerability in facing difficult choices. It is Alda, however, who captures most tellingly the theme of enduring love. Ira is a central figure in the film, and in his role Alda is pivotal to the union of the two stories. Towards this end, under the direction of the film by George Tillman Jr., Alda develops Ira’s character very movingly.
This is sentimental, romantic cinema that is photographed and costumed well, and which communicates strong, positive messages about the meaning of enduring love and the personal sacrifices needed over time to sustain it. The film aims to inspire, and its capacity to do that resides heavily in the nature of its messages.
The film captures the popular pull of the romantic genre, often displayed on the Hollywood cinema screen. The formulaic principles are relatively clear-cut: Love must be pursued at all costs, a crisis will occur to precipitate a break-up, and there must be a happy ending. In all these ways, this film provides solidly escapist romantic-fare. It is a romantic tale about one love that has journeyed over time and matured along life’s path, and another love that travels a similar path more impulsively. The film also echoes sentimentally a much feted dictum of attachment that reflects a third aspect of the romantic genre in film, and which motivated Ira in the way he chose to express the memory of his love for Ruth: “the chance of life together was (always) greater than the risk of being apart”.
All told, this is an entertaining movie that tugs very predictably at the heartstrings, but in a surprisingly effective way.
12 Random Films…
