The Longest Ride

When it comes to Nicholas Sparks adaptations, I enter into them with some trepidation although I always get suckered into them. Who knew I was such a softie? Each one is usually a sweeping love story full of grand gestures and romance with always a impending hint of tragedy. There have been some that I have enjoyed, such as The Notebook, Dear John, and The Lucky One. There have been ones I absolutely hated, such as Message in a Bottle or Nights in Rodanthe. And then there was the one I know I saw but have no memory of, The Last Song. I am happy to report that The Longest Ride falls squarely in the first category. Is it sappy, corny and shamelessly romantic? Oh hell yes it is, but if that's your cup of tea, it's at least a good one.

Sophia (played by Britt Robertson) is an Art Student in her senior year and is a couple months away from graduating and jetting off to New York to start a prestigious internship at an art gallery. She gets dragged to a local rodeo by a couple of her sorority sisters. There she catches the eye of champion bull rider Luke (played by Scott Eastwood). Of course, she's hesitant to agree to go out on a date with him, but she relents when one of her friends says everyone should have a fling with a cowboy once (I can't really argue with that logic). Luke picks her up at her Sorority house, sticking out like a sore thumb on campus, and takes her to a secluded lake front spot for a picnic dinner and bonfire. 

On their way home, Luke notices a busted guard rail on the side of the road and they stop to check it out. They find a car crashed down at the bottom of the hill and rush down to find an injured and disoriented old man, Ira (played by Alan Alda). Luke helps him out of the car and Ira asks Sophia to grab a box from the front seat, which she does. They accompany Ira to the hospital and Sophia decides to stay there and see if he is okay, but says Luke should go. As she waits, she opens the box and finds it is filled with letters that Ira wrote to his wife, Ruth. When she is allowed to see Ira, she returns the box to him. Ira admits he hadn't been able to read them for years, even with his glasses. Sophia offers to read them to him, which he agrees to. The film then begins flipping back and forth between present day and flashbacks to younger Ira (played by Jack Huston) and Ruth (played by Oona Chaplin) in the 1940s and 1950s. The parallels between Ira and Ruth's story and the one between Luke and Sophia become apparent quickly. Ruth is a cultured art lover having moved to America from Vienna and Ira is a simpler man who spends his days working in his mother's shop in small town North Carolina.  

Of course, it's a long road to happily ever after for both couples. For Ira and Ruth, World War II breaks out and Ira is off to war. He proposes to Ruth before he leaves and she accepts, stating she wants to have a big family with him. Through a cruel twist of fate, Ira is injured in the war and due to a subsequent infection is rendered sterile. After all avenues, including adoption, seem closed to them, the two fill their days trying to be happy just as the two of them, taking solace in Ruth's love for both teaching and art. Luke and Sophia have a similar hurdle to jump. Luke is concerned that Sophia would never be happy living out her days on his family's ranch and he knows he doesn't fit into her world nor can he see being happy in New York. This is made crystal clear to the audience in a scene where Luke attends an art show at Sophia's request. He tries his best to play along, but when Sophia's future boss (played by Gloria Ruben) asks him what he thinks of the show, he remarks that he thinks there's more bullshit there than where he works. Luckily for Sophia, her boss laughs at the joke, but the underlying point remains the same. What future can they have if life is pulling them in different directions?

The film does a good job of working it's way through the Nicholas Sparks checklist with his usual story tropes front and center. There's the young couple whose romance his helped along by an older individual, a romance told in flashbacks, tragedy, heartbreak, the parting of the couple and a tearful reunion. But yet everything is given a nice polish with solid direction by George Tillman, Jr. and some gorgeous cinematography as well. Both couples are brought to life remarkably well by the four leads giving engaging performances to their well defined characters. Scott Eastwood is cast perfectly as Luke, bringing the same sort of cowboy swagger to the role that his father refined throughout his career. It also helps that he and Robertson share some genuinely good chemistry with one another. The same can be said for Jack Huston and Oona Chaplin as the younger Ira and Ruth. Ruth is quite a character, so full of passion and life it's easy to see why Ira fell for her so fast. She's a great character and played wonderfully by Chaplin. In fact, I enjoyed their half of the movie more than the modern day portions of the film. Anytime the film switched to Ira and Ruth, I found myself perking up a bit more. It's not to say I found Luke and Sophia's story boring, but I have to admit I did find Ira and Ruth's story a bit more engaging, perhaps because Ira and Ruth had more to overcome than Luke and Sophia. Still, in the case of both couples it's refreshing to see that the only thing keeping both couples apart is each other's genuine desire for the other person to be happy even if it's not with them rather than any sort of ham-fisted plot machinations or scheming villains. I think that it was that touch that helped the story resonate with me a little more than I expected.

Overall, yes The Longest Ride is a sappy romantic movie, one that others would dub a "chick flick," although I hate that phrase. But it's one that is told well, with good performances to support it.  Of course, this is going to be a divisive movie with people either loving it or hating it. If you're a sucker for this type of movie, like me, you're probably going to enjoy it. If after reading this review you thought to yourself, "I'd rather have my right eye ripped out with a hot poker than watch this tripe," well, then you have your answer too.