Safe Haven

(2013)  1/2 Pg-13
115 min. Relativity Media. Director: Lasse Hallström. Cast: Josh Duhamel, Julianne Hough, Cobie Smulders, David Lyons, Noah Lomax, Mimi Kirkland.

/content/films/4472/1.jpgRemember when romance novels used to be described as "bodice rippers" and all seemed to be written by the same person? Well, now they're pre-screenplays whose unholy cinematic offspring look like the result of People Magazine mating with a glossy "Romantic Getaways" calendar, that “same person” is corporate-friendly romance novelist/entrepreneur Nicholas Sparks, and the end result is cineplex-filler Safe Haven.


With Safe Haven, producer Sparks—along with his screenwriting adapters Leslie Bohem and Dana Stevens—risks killing the mood by introducing "thriller" elements. The picture begins with a barefoot, cocktail-dress-clad young woman (Julianne Hough) escaping a suburban crime scene. Once she goes on the run, only a few perfunctory scenes of the stock-unsympathetic Boston detective (David Lyons) on her trail interrupt the iron-clad Sparks formula.



All this and two (count 'em, two!) inane twists that spit in the face of sense. Even if one accepts the absurd circumstances under which Hough's character turns fugitive, one has to survive a thuddingly ineffective, rug-pulling resolution involving—well, I won't say, but I will say these people have no shame when it comes to cramming in gauzy emotional-spiritual manipulation.

And it's all directed by Lasse Hallström who—despite being capable of making such films as My Life as a Dog, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen—continues to make Sparks adaptations like Dear John and Safe Haven. Duhamel can and does nominally act here, but Hough can’t be bothered to do anything other than flash toothy smiles and crinkle her dimples just so. Given the soulless-cash-grab material, who can blame her? Yeah, I know it’s Valentine’s Day. How about dinner and dancing? You can thank me later for your safe haven from Safe Haven.

[This review first appeared in Palo Alto Weekly.]

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