In “The Best Of Me” it is 1992 and Amanda (Liana Liberato) and Dawson
(Luke Bracey--looking too old) become high school sweethearts. She
comes from a wealthy Louisiana family while he is described as ‘poor
white trash’ by his father (Sean Bridgers), with her father, Jon Tenney,
trying to buy Dawson off, not succeeding. For unknown reasons Dawson
leaves the town and Liana.

Twenty years later we meet Dawson (James Marsden) who is now an oil
rig worker who just escaped death and Amanda (Michelle Monaghan) is
married, has a son, lost a younger daughter to leukemia and whose
husband (Sebastian Arcelus) is a drunkard.

Based on a book by Nicholas Sparks, with the screenplay by J. Mills
Goodloe and Will Fetters, we know true love won’t run smooth. Along the
way we meet Dawson’s two redneck brothers played byHunter Burke and Rob
Mello, Gerald McRaney, as Tuck, his mentor and the reason for Amanda and
Dawson getting together again all these years later. The writers throw
in all the cliché twists and turns that good romance novels/films have
hopefully in paying off with the audience in tears. There are two
surprise twists that unfortunately are telegraphed before they happened.

The soundtrack tries to work on the heartstrings while Louisiana is
photographed in all its hanging moss glory, skies with millions of
stars, the actors looking their best and

A HUGE mistake, which might not have been as obvious had the movie
not constantly shifted between 1992 and 2012, is the fact that the
younger Dawson, not only looking too old, has no resemblance to the
older Dawson plus none to his father and two brothers. At least the
young and older Amanda both have long curled hair so there is some
resemblance. All the actors do what is required of them and there is
chemistry between the younger Amanda and Dawson along with the older
pair.

“The Best Of Me” is not an unforgettable romance movie but gives the
audience what it comes for, though logic has to be left at the door when
walking in. Having to choose between this movie and “Fury” we made a
good choice.