{"id":566,"date":"2013-03-18T09:42:25","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T13:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/~reviewing\/?page_id=566"},"modified":"2013-03-18T09:43:07","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T13:43:07","slug":"love-meets-thriller-in-safe-haven","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reviewing\/?page_id=566","title":{"rendered":"Love meets thriller in ‘Safe Haven’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted March 17, 2013<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By ELIZABETH DE ARMAS<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get straight to the point: Yes, this is another Nicholas Sparks romance. No, this is not the \u201cThe Notebook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing will ever top the Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling dynamic duo from 2004, but love meets thriller in \u201cSafe Haven\u201d and you may be in need of a tissue as the movie hits its pinnacle point: some blood, some saving, some passion and some fireworks.<\/p>\n

An early disclaimer: I am a hopeless romantic and every love story makes my eyes water and my heart melt. However, I only shed a tear — or maybe two \u2013 toward the ending — on this one.<\/p>\n

At first, you may think you\u2019ve walked into the wrong movie. Director Lasse Hallstr\u00f6m does not start off \u201cSafe Haven\u201d as your typical romantic movie like he did in \u201cDear John.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, you see a woman, Julianne Hough, frantically running down the street looking for a safe place to hide.<\/p>\n

Then Hough, who plays Katie, gets on a bus with a black hoodie covering her platinum blonde hair and shadowing her blue eyes. It\u2019s obvious she doesn\u2019t want to seem recognizable.<\/p>\n

The bus takes her to Southport, a small town in North Carolina, where she begins a new life away from her difficult past. From then on, the movie unravels rather quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cSafe Haven\u201d is predictable once Katie meets Alex (played by Josh Duhamel), a widower with two children. He just so happens to be the only model looking man who lives in the town. And, Katie just so happens to be the only blonde bombshell.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Katie plays hard to get, fails at it, and then the love affair takes off\u2026 until a ghost from Katie\u2019s past, who so happens to be a psycho cop, creeps into her present and tries to ruin her new life.<\/p>\n

Of course it happens to be on the Fourth of July and the whole town is celebrating at Southport\u2019s traditional Independence Day parade.<\/p>\n

And then there is Jo, played by Cobie Smulders, who so happens to be Katie\u2019s neighbor \u2026 even though she lives in the middle of what looks like a forest. And, no one in town seems to mention anyone named Jo.<\/p>\n

Strange, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Alex does a decent job playing the mother figure and father role to his kids. His acting is much more realistic than Katie\u2019s. You can see the emotions in Alex\u2019s eyes and body language, when he faces challenges, and when he starts falling in love.<\/p>\n

But Katie is a little happy-go-lucky for my taste. Her acting doesn\u2019t seem as believable at times, especially when the bottle-breaking drama and scandal begins on the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost mechanical and seems staged. This is probably the reason a waterfall wasn\u2019t running down my face \u2013 I didn\u2019t feel it like I felt the passion you felt between Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried in \u201cDear John\u201d or McAdams and Gosling in \u201cThe Notebook.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is hard not to compare every Nicholas Sparks bestseller book turned movie to \u201cThe Notebook.\u201d The only movie that has ever come close \u2013 and not too close \u2013 is \u201cP.S. I Love You,\u201d which is not even one of Sparks\u2019 novels.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, romantic novels shouldn\u2019t be recreated into films. Sparks is way too good of a writer and, if people are watching the movies without reading his books, they won\u2019t know that his story is somewhat lost on the big screen (excluding \u201cThe Notebook,\u201d always).<\/p>\n

Cinematography is not at its finest in \u201cSafe Haven,\u201d but Hallstr\u00f6m does pull it together. The little town of Southport is picture perfect \u2013 picket fences, water front diner, wood floors and friendly faces. It is the ideal place one would call safe \u2013 a haven.<\/p>\n

All in all, \u201cSafe Haven\u201d is just like almost every romantic novel turned movie is \u2013 there is a handsome man who falls for a pretty woman (or vice versa) while something tries to tear them apart \u2013 but love eventually prevails. However, the continuous suspense and thrill of the plot gives \u201cSafe Haven\u201d the edge it needed to surpass clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n