Do you believe in fate? In The Best of Me, the newest film adaption of a Nicholas Sparks best seller, fate is a prominent theme. This tearjerker follows the ill-fated love of Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole, played by Michelle Monaghan and James Marsden, with rising stars Luke Bracey and Liana Liberato portraying their younger selves.
In the opening of this tearjerker, viewers witness the near death of Dawson Cole when an oilrig explosion throws him off a 100-foot ledge into choppy, unforgiving waters. Miraculously, he survives, and develops a predilection that he lived because there was something he was still destined to do. Shortly thereafter, he learns the devastating news that his surrogate father and dear friend Tuck Hostetler has died. For the first time since the tragic event that stole him away from the small North Carolina town he called home, Dawson returns to fulfill the last wishes of Tuck, and is surprised to find Amanda, his first and only love, has also come to say goodbye to the mentor who provided shelter for their high school romance.
Despite the estrangement in Amanda’s marriage, it’s abundantly clear that their love has survived;the more time Dawson spends with Amanda, the more convinced he becomes that she is the very reason he is still alive.
The movie alternates between the couple falling in love in the summer after their senior year of high school and the pair rediscovering that epic love over twenty years later in middle age. A staple of all Nicholas Sparks’ stories, Dawson and Amanda come from different sides of the tracks: Amanda was born into a successful, affluent family, while Dawson was born into a family of notorious criminals. Shortly after Dawson and Amanda meet, Dawson decides he must escape his toxic father and is taken in by Tuck Hostetler – played by Gerald McRaney.
On the night of Dawson and Amanda’s prom, Dawson’s father and his gang of fellow criminals jump Tuck, beating him unconscious and destroying his property. When Dawson – accompanied by his cousin Bobby, played by Robby Rasmussen, and Bobby’s pregnant girlfriend April, played by Caroline Hebert – discover Tuck, Dawson rushes to his father’s house, intent on killing him. In the midst of a struggle with his father, Dawson shoots the gun, but misses his father, accidently killing Bobby instead. Dawson is arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison. In spite of Amanda’s protests, Dawson breaks up with her and refuses to see her when she visits in the hopes that she will go to college and fulfill all her dreams.
Amanda’s life, however, does not go as planned: she gets pregnant in her second year at college, drops out and gets married. She has a son, and, three years later, a daughter who tragically dies as a toddler from Leukemia. In the wake of their daughter’s death, Amanda’s husband becomes an alcoholic and their marriage ultimately becomes an unhappy one. However, she still feels a responsibility to try to make the marriage work for the sake of her son.
The odds are stacked against the love between Dawson and Amanda when they are both teenagers and adults, as the nefarious forces that drove them apart two decades ago re-emerge to threaten their relationship and well-being. Will their love be able to conquer all or will they be eluded of their chance at happiness together by fate for a second time?
Overall, the actors do a brilliant job at conveying their characters, and The Best of Me has everything you could want in a Nicholas Sparks movie: kissing in the rain, a father figure who doesn’t approve, love letters and–of course–lots and lots of tears.
Anyone looking for a good cry can catch The Best of Me in theaters Oct. 16.
