Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.5

The Best of Me Blu-ray Movie Review

Sparks fails to ignite.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 7, 2015

The logical answer is that Nicholas Sparks is a secret heir to the Kleenex fortune (there must be a Kleenex fortune, musn’t there?). How else to explain the author’s seemingly inerrant ability to tug on the heartstrings rather mercilessly in stories that tend to exploit the vagaries of fate and that time honored tradition of unrequited (or at least substantially obstacle prone) romance? The Best of Me follows in a long line of cinematic adaptations of Sparks’ novels, films like Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John, The Last Song, The Lucky One and Safe Haven. Simply perusing the covers of the films released on Blu-ray thus far will offer the discerning viewer a quick visual summary of what’s in store in most Sparks outings, namely impossibly beautiful people falling in and out of love, with various melodramatic elements lingering in the background that throw a kink or two (or three) into any plans for a simple happily ever after. Sparks’ rather rabid legion of fans will find nothing new in that regard in The Best of Me, though it’s rather interesting that this Blu-ray release does in fact offer a happy ending in an alternate cut of the film that is decidedly different from the bittersweet denouement of the theatrical version, a version which is more or less guaranteed to turn on the waterworks in most viewers and therefore add to Sparks’ assumed Kleenex based fortune.

The starcrossed lovers in this particular Sparks enterprise are dashing oil offshore platform worker Dawson Cole (James Marsden as an adult, Luke Bracey as a teenager) and pretty housewife Amanda Collier (Michelle Monaghan as an adult, Liana Liberato as a teenager). The film begins with a devastating accident on the oil rig which by all accounts really should have killed Dawson, and yet his “miraculous” survival offers the seemingly emotionally tamped down gentleman a chance to reassess why he’s here in the first place. We already know that Dawson is a thinker on a quest because (wait for it) he reads Stephen Hawking books. Shortly after he makes it through this threatening scrape without so much as a scratch, he receives a phone call from an attorney letting him know that someone named Tuck has died and that Dawson has been named in the will. Not so very coincidentally, Amanda has received a similar phone call, and the two reunite on the premises of Tuck’s rather sylvan farm, at which point the flashbacks start populating the film to an almost oppressive degree.

Yes, of course these two have a history, and it’s one filled with the joy and magic of young love, as well as the trauma and tragedy of bone headed relatives and unexpected disaster (in other words, it’s a Sparks story). Teenaged Dawson is a whiz of a mechanic, but not much in the actual communicating with other humans department. Despite Amanda’s obvious interest in him, it takes the guy a while to actually speak to the pretty young girl. Luckily, local elder Tuck (Gerald McRaney) is around to offer Dawson a home (Dawson is estranged from those aforementioned bone headed relatives) while also gently fostering the relationship between the two kids.

The film ping pongs back and forth between current time, with Dawson and Amanda trying to overcome some unnamed trauma from their past, while the flashbacks slowly (slowly) fill us in on the backstory. Is there any question as to what’s going to unfold? Dawson and Amanda were obviously meant for each other, something horrible happened to prevent their relationship from flowering, and the two are now living with the repercussions of events and decisions from long ago.

While there’s nothing even remotely surprising about The Best of Me, and in fact the film is almost maddeningly contrived, there’s no denying the emotional pull that ultimately develops in the closing moments, when a completely unlikely concatenation of events makes Dawson’s “second chance” a similarly new opportunity for someone close to Amanda. It’s just blatantly manipulative on every conceivable level, and yet there is bound to be copious need for tissues, hence my aforementioned thesis about the Kleenex fortune.

While the film’s structure isn’t that big of a stumbling block, the disconnect between the actors portraying the characters at various ages is rather disconcerting at times. While Marsden and Bracey have at least a passing resemblance, at least if you don’t look very hard, Monaghan and Liberato share absolutely nothing in common, from coloring to facial appearance to even size. It’s a frankly ridiculous gambit that tends to shoot the film’s very structural artifice directly in the foot. The “villains” in the film are also so patently cartoonish that they undermine the film’s perhaps desperate attempts to achieve a baseline of emotional reality. Maybe that’s just a recognition that even the most hard hearted viewers need a minute to regain their composure after crying inconsolably.

The Best of Me Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Best of Me is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Shot digitally with the Arri Alexa, the film looks ravishingly beautiful quite a bit of the time, making even things like a rusty oil rig in the middle of the sea surprisingly picturesque. Director Michael Hoffman and Oliver Stapleton play with contrast and color boosting in some of the sequences in Tuck's improbably gorgeous garden, resulting in some incredibly vivid reds and purples in the flowers. Close-ups offer excellent fine detail, offering nicely delineated textures on clothing and elements like the crags in McRaney's face very clearly. As tends to be the case with digitally shot features, there's some slight murk in dimly lit scenes (particularly some of the interior scenes in Tuck's house), but perhaps surprisingly some of the darkest nighttime sequences actually offer good contrast, shadow detail and general detail. A couple of shots which I assume were green screened (like Dawson on the water tower) have backgrounds that look just slightly soft at times. There are no issues with image instability or compression artifacts.

The Best of Me Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Best of Me's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is a rather front heavy mix, though the ubiquitous source cues and underscore tend to help fill out the surround channels, as do occasional ambient environmental sound effects. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, and while the track isn't overly showy in any way, fidelity remains excellent and there are no issues of any kind to report.

The Best of Me Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 9:46)


• Along for the Ride (1080p; 1:53) is an EPK for this new Sparks outing.


• Nicholas Sparks Interviews: Michelle and James (1080p; 2:47) is a brief sit down with the adult stars and the author.


• Nicholas Sparks Interviews: Liana and Luke (1080p; 2:18) does similar service for the younger stars of the film.


• Commentary by Michael Hoffman (Theatrical Version Only) features the director going the typical route of praising his stars and Sparks' storytelling acumen.


• "I Did" Music Video by Lady Antebellum (1080p; 3:28)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:21)


• "Tears of Joy" Edition with Alternate Ending (1080p; 1:55:55) is a few minutes shorter than the theatrical version and jettisons a surprising amount of the tragic material. Watch this version if you're out of Kleenex.

The Best of Me Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Yeah, I teared up at the end of The Best of Me. Wanna make something of it? I kid, of course, but there's simply no denying the fact that Sparks knows how to pull the strings to evoke a lachrymose reaction. What's so fascinating about this Blu-ray release is the "happy" version that's also included. It's no accident that that version never saw the theatrical light of day, for it subverts the very core of tragedy which seems to subsume a lot of Sparks' stories. If you're a Sparks fan (and they are legion), you'll probably love The Best of Me. Technical merits are very strong in any case, and the supplemental package is also agreeable.