When looking at the movie title “The Lucky One” and knowing that it is based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, it is likely that men would shake their heads in disgust while women would say “aw” in memory of other love stories like “The Notebook.” But that’s just what it is – another Nicholas Sparks movie.
Viewers walk into the theater getting exactly what they would expect from a story, written by the same author as “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember.” Just like those movies, this one is just as predictable.
The film is set around Logan Thibault (Zac Efron), who comes back from a tour with the Marines in the Middle East solely because of a photo of a woman, Beth (Taylor Schilling). He said seeing the photo saved his life. Logan goes on a search for Beth and the two fall in love, except for one problem – Beth’s controlling and abusive ex.
The director, Scott Hicks, left one major question to be answered: How does Logan find Beth so easily? Any rational person would understand how hard it would be to find one single woman out of the entire United States, but Logan seems to find her so easily after asking many people if they recognized the girl in the photo. Maybe the audience is meant to think that Logan found Beth out of pure luck or fate.
Finding love through fate is the theme that this film is based on, but this lends no originality to the storyline since so many other films have also relied on this very same theme. The point is that these two people end up together because they are meant to be together and have always been meant to be together. Emotional scenes are what convince the audience that this might possibly be true.
While it may be difficult to see Efron as anything but Troy from Disney’s “High School Musical,” it is easy to see that he has grown up. His portrayal of a stony-faced and disciplined Marine is far from the childhood work of his past.
Schilling, while experienced through her roles in “Mercy” and “Atlas Shrugged: Part 1,” does a bit too much over-acting. The overdramatic look on her face before kissing Efron can easily make a viewer laugh. Regardless, Schilling does a good job at portraying Beth’s emotions and making them come alive on the screen.
The biggest disappointment stems from how the only twist was presented. A random character, which had previously not been in the film at all, walks into the shot and tells the antagonist, Keith Clayton (Jay Ferguson), something that simply adds a chapter of sabotage and even more predictability to the film.
While the storyline doesn’t follow the pattern of boy-meets-girl then boy-and-girl-fall-in-love-type of scenario exactly, it does still have the same qualities of predictability. After any given character makes a big decision or a large action is completed, it is easy for the audience to see what is coming next. In a way, this ruins a lot of the suspense in the film.
The one thing that the film succeeds in immensely is its balance of dramatic, comedic, emotional and gripping moments. There is enough comedic relief to keep the audience laughing, enough emotional moments to keep tears in the audience’s eyes and enough gripping moments to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. The only problem is that this is all that the film relied on to make it memorable and relatable in the audiences mind.
In essence, this film is just like every other love story out there, just with its own twists to set it slightly apart from the rest.
