Audiences often grow tired of the same tricks – Michael Bay’s movies have too many explosions and Tim Burton’s movies have too much Johnny Depp -but they’re inexplicably hoodwinked by Nicholas Sparks’ unsurprising stories of romance and destiny.

For anyone fortunate enough to have eluded the sickly-sweet allure of a Sparks movie, trailers for ‘The Lucky One’ are enough to spoil the movie and its predecessors. Sure, moviegoers could deduce that its star players Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling would indulge in some opposites-attract tension before eventually falling in love, like sharing a kiss in the rain or in the shower before setting sail together on an old white boat.

But some element of surprise would have been nice.

Efron plays Logan, a Marine officer who served in Iraq. He credits his survival to a photo he found of a mysterious woman, whom he calls his ‘guardian angel.’ After suffering a few episodes of post-traumatic stress disorder following his return home, he walks from Colorado to Louisiana to find the blonde in the snapshot. Apparently traveling 1000 miles on foot is a stronger test of love than surviving a war.

And because no one in a Sparks story works in a cubicle or at any normal job, Logan finds Beth (Schilling) working at a dog kennel within her massive estate. He pensively looks at her like she’s heaven-sent, but she’s just your average single mother. You know, the one wearing denim shorts and a loose button-down shirt like a model straight out of a Lucky Brand catalog. Once viewers notice just how good-looking and unfairly straightforward their lives are, they see ‘The Lucky One’ for what it really is: a series of doe-eyed glances between beautiful people and not so much of a returning-veteran drama.

Without having to try too hard, Schilling fits comfortably into her slight role. Even though she’s better than her on-screen partner at expressing her conflicting emotions – a longing sigh here, a cathartic sob there – the movie sells her performance short. Even her subplot involving a hotheaded ex-husband gets overlooked for moments of pensive eye contact with Efron’s emotionally vulnerable character. Just like her photo counterpart, she’s more an object of the movie’s desire than a three-dimensional woman.

While Schilling might be a wallflower in this run-of-the-mill love story, Efron is glaringly out of place.Although three high-energy installments of ‘High School Musical’ might be responsible for the permanent image of a dancing Efron, he doesn’t seem like the right fit for a brooding, tatted-up Marine. By restraining his natural charisma to play stoic Logan, he becomes so blank and expressionless that he looks uncomfortable for most of the movie’s 101-minute runtime -one which could have benefited from a generous shave.

Efron’s limited range and Schilling’s character constraints make it impossible to gauge the couple’s chemistry, resulting in a love story that isn’t as emotionally compelling as it should be.Granted, no on-screen couple is as charming, convincing or memorable as Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in ‘The Notebook.’ But that doesn’t keep studios from attempting to recreate that same dynamic.

As a result, the movie’s real star is its gorgeous Southern backdrop. The small Louisianan town is almost mythical in its beauty and simplicity, like something out of a sweeping 1950s romantic melodrama of sunsets and swans. Unfortunately, ‘The Lucky One’ falls short of sweeping, let alone romantic. Instead, its nauseating melodrama smothers even the slightest desire for another Sparks confection.

dataroy@syr.edu

Published on April 25, 2012 at 12:00 pm