‘The Longest Ride’: Film Review (2024)

When it comes to Nicholas Sparks, you’re either up for the ride oryou’re not. If you are, you’re part of a Middle American fan club thathas supported nine schmaltzy, formulaic, achingly sincere filmadaptations of the novelist’s books to the cumulative box office tuneof about $750,000,000. If you’re not, well, The Longest Ride will feellike one of the longest 128 minutes of your life. Old-fashioned in allthe most tedious ways, this by-the-numbers romance between oddlymismatched lovers plods along in a way that will nonetheless providethe cinematic equivalent of an agreeable airplane novel read for thealready converted.

What’s most strange here is how Sparks, in a calculated attempt tolink people from very different worlds, offers up social backgroundsfor them that simply don’t mix at all — modern Southern college sororitylife, the circ*mstances for World War II Jewish refugees, enclaves ofmodern art a half-century ago and today and, per the title, the good-ol’-boy milieu of professional bull riding. On top of that, no matterwhat crises may arise (and they are numerous), everyone is alwaysperfectly attired and surrounded by pristine North Carolina settingsin which no blade of grass is ever out of place.

The pretty couple at the center of things has modern cowboy Luke(Scott Eastwood), comeback-minded after having been violently thrownby a mighty mean bull named Rango, pursuing a very gentlemanlycourtship of Wake Forest college senior Sophia (Britt Robertson)shortly before she’s due to move to New York for a high-end artgallery internship. Luke’s the sort to tote flowers when he shows upfor their first date (“Call me old-school,” he bashfully intones),while Sophia is mentally already half-way out the school door on theway to her big-city future.

But fate intervenes, as it has a habit of doing, when the couplerescue an old man from a car accident on a dark rainy night and takehim to a hospital. While he recovers, genial old gent Ira Levinson(Alan Alda) allows Sophia to read aloud to him from old letters thatrecount his poignant relationship with his beloved late wife, Ruth. Soeven as it’s not explained why so many letters were written when, infact, Ira and Ruth were in the same place most of the time back in theearly 1940s, we see extended flashbacks of the newly arrived AustrianRuth (Oona Chaplin), a vivacious, forthright, immaculately attiredyoung woman, capturing the heart of the pleasant looking butexceedingly placid Ira (Jack Huston, bearing absolutely no resemblanceto Alda, young or old).

The couple’s many trials and tribulations, notably including Ira’sJake Barnes-like war injury that prevents him from giving Ruth thechildren she craves and their failure to adopt a parentless hillbillyboy who shows intellectual promise, simply serve to demonstrate howfew obstacles Luke and Sophia face compared to theirs. But moredirectly, Ruth’s passion for modern art fostered at the (real)progressive Black Mountain College in North Carolina feeds oh-soconveniently into Sophia’s career interests, while also providing thespringboard for one of the most outrageously preposterous surpriseendings in recent movies.

Leaving his career origins in Soul Food and the Barbershop series(which he produced) very far behind indeed, director George TillmanJr. indulges, nay, embraces the sanitized banality of Sparks’ worldwith a straight face. Just as the basic plot points are hard toswallow, even the most rudimentary aspects of the characters’interactions feel forced, artificial and unspontaneous. A significantpart of the interest here surely lies in the film’s role as a showcasefor four just moderately known young actors. Robertson, who co-starsin the highly anticipated, about-to-arrive Tomorrowland, often seemsto have a bridle on here, keen to impart some spontaneity that’s beingkept in check. Eastwood, in his first significant starring role afterseveral supporting gigs, most recently in Fury, certainly resembleshis dad both physically and in his inclination for minimal dialogue;he’s easy on the eyes and comfortably inhabits a Western-stylecharacter, but his potential remains to be determined.

Curiously, the couple from 70-odd years ago has been cast withgrandchildren of Hollywood luminaries from that period. Hustondisplays none of the gumption associated with his director grandfatherJohn or the latter’s thespian offspring. By contrast, Chaplin,granddaughter of Charles, daughter of actress Geraldine and namesakeof her grandmother, is the sole younger actor to pop here; playing theonly one of the youthful characters with any boldness or inclination to speak her own mind, the unconventional-lookingperformer comes off as assertive, driven and appealing in anidiosyncratic manner.

But providing the film with whatever emotional grounding it can claimis Alda. Restricted almost exclusively to a hospital bed, the79-year-old actor makes the canned sentimentality of his 91-year-oldcharacter go down quite easily as he comments to Sophia about thevicissitudes of his life.

The settings and compositions are picture-postcard, the score syrupy,the bull-riding coverage not entirely convincing, the sentimentscliched and reassuring. But, boy oh boy, the ending! In Sparks’ world,when happiness rains, it pours.

Production: Fox 2000 Pictures, Temple Hill, Nicholas Sparks Productions

Cast: Britt Robertson, Scott Eastwood, Jack Huston, Oona Chaplin, AlanAlda, Lolita Davidovich, Melissa Benoist, Gloria Reuben

Director: George Tillman Jr.

Screenwriter: Craig Bolotin, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks

Producers: Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, Nicholas Sparks, Theresa Park

Executive producers: Michele Imperato Stabile, Robert Teitel, Tracey Nyberg

Director of photography: David Tattersall

Production designer: Mark Garner

Costume designer: Mary Claire Hannan

Editor: Jason Ballantine

Music: Mark Isham

Casting: Mary Vernieu, Lindsay Graham

PG-13 rating, 128 minutes