The Lucky One

When you strap on the feedbag
at your local faux Italian dining big box, you’re not paying for authenticity
but for ample portions of warm, sloppy comfort, unfettered by the complexity of
real pancetta or imported pecorino Romano cheese. The same thing applies when
you take your seat for the seventh cinematic adaptation from the catalog of
beach-read champ Nicholas Sparks; you get a big serving of buttery
sentimentality, splashed with drops of romance and thrift store spirituality.

This time out, we get a
drizzle of patriotism tossed into the usual romantic salad, with Zac Efron as
an emotionally wounded vet returning home in search of the mystery woman he
believes fate directed him to find.  While in combat, Efron’s serene Sgt. Logan
Thibault finds the picture of a lovely blonde in rubble, and in retrieving it,
narrowly avoids a deadly mortar strike. Feeling a profound debt of gratitude to
this stranger, Logan sets out from his home in Colorado to find her; on foot,
an epic journey reduced to a title sequence. The movie transplants Logan’s destination from Sparks’ beloved Carolinas to Louisiana, likely due to production
tax incentives (remember those?), but the palmettos sway just as agreeably on
the Gulf Coast. The sullen Marine finds his quarry; a willowy single mom named
Beth (Taylor Schilling), but is too shy to tell her his story. He takes a job
as a handyman at the kennel she owns with her wisdom-dispensing grandmother,
rendered by Blythe Danner in a string of knowing smiles and frowns. Standing in
the way of the would-be lovebirds is Beth’s ex-hubby (Jay R. Ferguson ), a
surly, cocky redneck sheriff, just so we have zero reason to care about him.

There is a giggle-worthy
moment when Beth stares out the kitchen window at the sweaty Logan, while she
sensuously caresses a pot, her hands slowly gliding through the sudsy water
until she damn near climaxes. This scene is so silly it might as well be a Naked
Gun cutting-room-floor fodder. This is later followed by a passionate —
though clothed — dripping shower hump session that makes the average telenovela
seem understated.

Zac Efron continues to try to
shake off the mouse droppings still lingering from his teen idol days, and he
appropriately tenses up his body, and tries to puff up his slender frame to
look tough. Too often though, when tasked with being soulful, he gets caught
flashing his best “blue steel” look at the camera, hoping to burn through the
screen with his smoldering pale fire. The overwrought cinematography just loves
Efron, but in the hammy hands of director Scott Hicks (Shine) the camera
also loves every precious inch of god’s little acre, coating every frame with
sun-dappled splendor.

If you’ve seen one of these
things you’ve seen them all — and trust me on this, because I have. The
improbable conclusion has all the elements of movie tragedy; a kid in danger, a
monster storm and a rickety old bridge. In the end, something physical is
restored and something spiritual is renewed, and the audience has gotten what
they paid for, whether it’s good for them or not.

This article appears in Apr 18-24, 2012.