A Miley to Remember
The Last Song
Directed by Julie Anne Robinson
Runtime: 101 min.
CONTRASTING HOLLYWOODS SHAMELESS commitment to 3-D gimmicks and various fratboy-slob comedies, the series of films adapted from Nicholas Sparks romance novels consistently offer substantive emotional expression, as in last months Dear John and now The Last Song. The emotions came through stronger when the Sparks franchise started over a decade ago with Message in a Bottle (1999) and A Walk to Remember (2002). But since the surprise boxoffice hit The Notebook (2004), signs of formula have become apparent: Diane Lane and Richard Gere strained to make the 2008 Nights in Rodanthe seem sincere, which contrasts the instantaneous, irresistible affect that Miley Cyrus brings to The Last Song.
Cyrus pop-star presence draws one into the story of rebellious Veronica surmounting her adolescent resentment when she visits her divorced father in Georgia and falls in love with local nice guy Will (Liam Hemsworth). Cyrus acting ability makes Veronicas emotional make-over work. Since The Last Song is not a musical, pop-singer Cyrus does little more than a brief sing-a-long to a radio broadcast of Maroon 5s She Will Be Loved, which serves Sparks basic, puppy-love sentiments. Plus, Cyrus round face and wide eyes recall Joan Blondells likable spunkiness. Amorous Veronica drops her ice-cube act to her father (Greg Kinnear) and thaws out in a manner that naturally heals their generational, Electra rift.
This emotional blossoming, absent from 3-D adventures and boy-farces, is what makes the Sparks movies notable. (The Sparks franchise is a healthier series than those John Grisham-derived flicksexcept for Altmans The Gingerbread Man and the last scene of The Firm.) Sparks ingenious trope is to show his characters advancement toward fullness of feeling and wise, rueful personal connection.When Veronica returns to the piano lessons her father taught her (and a Julliard scholarship), The Last Song doesnt promote careerism but dramatizes her emotional breakthrough. Its not the cornball sentimentality of The Bridges of Madison County; its spirituality that sustains them.
In the best Sparks film, A Walk to Remember, the spirituality was unabashedly Christian; The Last Song is diffident about thisVeronicas father makes a stained-glass window for his boyhood church but the angel imagery is non-denominational. Christianity would not have insulted Cyrus core audience any more than Mandy Moores forthright Christian celibacy in A Walk to Remember.By miscalculating the extent of Sparks appeal, these filmmakers undercut their potential pop artistry.TV-director Julie Anne Robinsons theatrical film debut features strikingly vivid widescreen vistas of the Southern setting. Its as if she and cinematographer John Lindley were simulating the radiance of stained glass to depict a spiritually enhanced environment. Robinson also supplies Veronica with an angelic love object in Will, the tall, blond Hemsworth, whose dark eyebrows and ripe lips frame his stained-glass eyes.
All this should work together to make the climax, set at Tybee Island First Baptist Church, an epiphany similar to the spectral marvels of Michael Powells A Canterbury Tale or the profound menarche symbolism of Robert Mulligans Man in the Moon. Instead, The Last Songs climax lacks even Southern white gospel conviction and winds up rather limp. It falls back on simplistic romantic conventions.Theres a subplot concerning Southern church-burnings (and a curious inclusion of a black pastor before an all-white congregation) that suggests a richer context for Sparks tale of forgiveness. It also suggests that as the Sparks franchise continues, it could reach beyond the chick-flick genre and embrace a cult as large as Tyler Perrys.