Why I am Angry at Nicholas Sparks

This is not a tidy movie that ends with a bow on top. It ends with a crane shot of a woman alone on a bench.

This is a very untidy movie, not based on a true story, that breaks all the rules of chick-flickery and made me angry.

Apparently there is a book. "The Best of Me" Nicholas Sparks wrote the thing, and then someone made a movie based on it, but apparently took some liberties. My friend Meg had read the book, and there in her hoody, shook her head at me when the movie veered from the original story line. Her head shook many times.

I am not holding back on spoilers, so read no more if you wish to get angry all by yourself later.

Here's the deal. I was into this movie. I was right there with them as they lived their star-crossed lives. The actors were good. The music was well done, and the story line moved along at a pleasant pace. The were was a break-up scene that was the most torturous break-up I've ever beheld. There was a good location that grounded the story, and great conflict with bad guys I truly despised. I was invested. So much so, that I even remembered the names of the main characters.

Amanda, the damsel and Dawson, the hunk of a man meet in their adult years. We know right away that Amanda is in an unpleasant marriage. It is obvious by how pretty she is, how much better looking Dawson is than her husband, and the tension when they don't have pleasant conversations. Also the music.

The music also tells us that this Dawson guy is a real catch. He is first met on a oil rig boat (which google confirms is a thing) where things are catching fire and he saves two men and is thrown into the water. He should be dead. Really, he should. But he survives without a scratch. The doctor sends him home. For a moment, I am super excited. It seems this chick-flick is about to turn into a movie where one of the characters is a mutant, or super-hero of some sort. I imagine what amazing immortal superpowers Dawson has, but alas, none. Except as a car mechanic, which while rugged and manly, isn't at all the same as being able to fly, or withstand gunshots without injury, or changing the weather with his eyes.

Amanda and Dawson both hear that a man named Tuck has passed away and they need to travel somewhere so they can see what he left them in the will.  They see each other. Amanda is wearing these to-die-for peach skinny jeans and gorgeous white top while Dawson is working on a car in the garage. Their meeting is super crazy awkward. Dawson tells her she looks really good, and she tells him she has to visit her mom.

We never meet her mom. Her mom is a figment.

Then we start getting flashbacks. Dawson is a much taller, much stronger, blonder, and dare I say less attractive version of himself as a teenager. Really, I feel the casting could have at least tried to get people who look alike, or could at least be related. These two males were clearly not related. The teen loves, Dawson and Amanda are very likable. Dawson was the son of a drug dealing, child beating, woman whoring, spawn of Satan. If Voldemort took a human form, it would be this guy's dad. I really hated him. The whole family dealt drugs, delivered them, cooked them, etc. But they weren't that successful because they weren't living a high life. Dawson's mom is MIA, and they never mention her. He runs away from home and finds refuge with the true hero of the movie, Tuck.

Tuck is like the priest in Les Miserables. You know, the one who found Jean Valjean had taken his silver and gives him more. Tuck finds a kid asleep in his garage who needs help, and he helps him. He gives him food, shelter, encouragement, company. He also protects him from his Voldemort father with a shotgun, shooting out the headlights, spotlights, windshield of  Daddy Voldemort's truck when he tries to come get Dawson and take him home.

Dawson and Amanda have a really sweet love story. She chases him because he is a smart boy, sweet, and plays it cool so of course she has to chase him. Amanda is a very ambitious girl from an affluent family who plans on going to Tulane and becoming a lawyer fighting for children's rights. She gets Dawson on the college track and he is well on his way.

Like I said, the two love birds are very star crossed. Amanda's rich daddy offers Dawson $80,000 not to date his daughter. Dawson's family is trying to drag him back into the slum from whence he came. The refuge from their love comes from Tuck, and the fact that they are crazy about eachother. It is adorable.

The true conflict in the relationship begins when teenage boy Dawson ends up accidentally shooting his best friend. Daddy Voldemort came with his peons and they beat up Tuck on Dawson's prom night. Tuck is almost dead. Dawson finds Tuck laying on the ground and immediately retaliates by chasing his dad with a loaded shot gun. During the brawl, Dawson's sweet best friend ends up with a bullet in his head, dying on the spot.

So, Dawson goes to jail for 8 years in a plea to put his family members away for an even longer period of time on drug charges. When he goes to jail, Amanda fully intends on waiting for him and going to school while he is in jail. She brings him some books the first visit and he breaks up with her. He tells her that she can't put her life on hold for 8 years, and teenage Dawson walks away in prison garb. The elevator doors close with Amanda pounding on glass windows with her fists begging him not to do this. Then she comes back to visit every day for a month, and every month for a year. Dawson never allows her to visit. He denies her as a visitor and she goes away.

Amanda gets married. Has a baby, then has another baby. She keeps visiting Tuck. Her baby girl named Bea dies from childhood leukemia at 2 or 3. Tuck knew that baby girl named Bea and kept a picture of the three of them in his home. She also has a teenage son named Jared that she loves.

Why am I angry?

Because Nicholas Sparks brings these two lovebirds together, makes it where they are going to finally be together and then he kills Dawson. Kills him in cold blood. The Dawson that I spent the entire movie falling in love with. And Daddy Voldemort is still walking around somewhere.

And then he tried to make me buy it by giving Amanda's teenage boy Dawson's heart. Ummm...I saw that movie, it was called "Return to Me," and is was done really well. (Hello Minnie Driver).

Dear Mr. Sparks,

If you choose to kill the man we all spent the entire movie falling in love with, and leave his woman alone on a bench in a field of poppies, you need to turn the man into a ghost, and allow them to make clay pots together. Or haunt her in a Wuthering Heights way. You can't kill him and leave it.

I am angry at you,
Evelyn

I give the movie 2 out of 5 stars. It was a well-done movie, but you shouldn't leave a chick flick angry. And I did. And I am. And I will be tomorrow.