Dear John, you should have stuck with the book

I picked the Dear John novel last weekend (thanks to CB for lending it to me) and I got really hooked that I finished it in less than a week, a feat for a busy bee like me. It was my companion while waiting for my 1.5 hour-delayed flight back to Manila last Friday. But I had to stop reading before I reached the end because I was already feeling a lump on my throat. Tears on a guy are like bombs on an airport, if you know what I mean.



THE BOOK

The story is rather simple, since simple beauty is the forte of Nicholas Sparks. He uses straightforward language and laid-back storytelling. But what sets Sparks apart is the heart he allows to beat in every story he fabricates. Living in this complex world, Spark’s simplistic prose appeals to our intrinsic human emotions... that is to revel in the lovely sunshine and the joys of love and at the same time suffer the gloom of heartbreak and loss.

Yes it’s a love story but told from the male perspective, so it is not that emasculating. Truth to tell, I can relate to most of the male leads to ever walk out of Sparks' pages. But John is probably and ironically the most self-destructive in the name of selflessness. Like John, I’m much of a loner and nonchalant to the thing called love. But when I do take the plunge, I approach it with such sensitivity and a mixture of wonder and trepidation that my life is never the same again. Sigh. And like John, I have been known to inflict personal pain if that meant making another person happy. Another sigh.

And so I drop the bomb. This is the third book to ever make me cry. Not bawling-in-fetal-position kind of crying. Just a tear shed for the beauty in the sadness. Reading Sparks is like engaging in a losing battle to keep the blues away. And then comes one sentence (yes all it takes is one sentence) which will dissolve all your restraint and you just let the emotions engulf you. At least I am man enough to admit that.

Dear John explores a different way of loving another person. And the sad part is that it’s also the only way I know how. Hence, no happy ending for me as well; I’ve longed accepted that.

There goes my Dear Bernard.

THE MOVIE

I was pretty much in a Dear John zone that I immediately dived into the movie after finishing the book. As a personal rule, I read the book first because I want to “connect” with it personally and not let a filmmaker interpret it for me. More often than not, the movie adaptation is a trying-hard effort. Some stories are not meant to be visual (stories can be simple whereas a movie has to be glossy). Since he banks more on emotions rather than imagery, Nicholas Sparks' works belong to this classification. But for some reason his novels and often turned into movies.

In fairness, the A Walk To Remember movie was acceptable, and not just because of Mandy Moore and the amazing soundtrack. It captured the essence of the story. Still better is the The Notebook adaptation. I hated the book (the ending chapter was revolting) but the movie gave the story a whole new light.

I think the trick is to stir up emotions and poignancy via cinematography and narration. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to cast pleasing actors and throw in a good soundtrack.

Dear John, the movie, is a dedication in dissapointment. It suffered from bad screenplay writing and lame direction (to think the director previously dished out Oscar-worthy Chocolat and The Cider House Rules). Though I have not read and watched Nights In Rodanthe, this is the worst movie adaptation ever. It’s like a Muslim was asked to make a movie out of The Bible.



Casting Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried was a step in the right direction. I initially wrote off Channing as a shoo-in for John (girls will swoon at his pretty face and built that is moulded for an Army uniform). But he proved me wrong because he carried the heavy scenes well enough. Still, the two lead actors did not have the same chemistry as Mandy Moore-Shane West and Rachel McAdams-Ryan Gosling. And they have the script to blame because the movie lacked something that the novel has.

Dear John’s biggest downfall is that the movie failed to capture the HEART and SOUL of the novel. It felt like the screen writer and director did not engage in the emotions of the story. They just look bits and pieces and strung it sans rhyme or reason. Sans emotional build-up. Even the full moon analogy was hackneyed, lacking the dramatic moments like the telescope-shooting star sequence in A Walk To Remember.

Had I not read the book, I don’t know if I would follow the development of the movie plot. For instance, how could Savannah say that John’s father has a disorder just by seeing him with his coins? In the novel you can understand how Savannah concluded that because we got to know the Dad. In the movie, the Dad was a disconnected character who was later given a tearjerker scene which left the viewer dumbfounded. Sorry, but the only reason I want to cry is because the movie was so far from the book.

And to add bitter icing to this already blown-up cake, they made a lot of changes to the characters (like Allan being Tim's son instead of brother). But I can forgive that. What’s appalling is that they had the nerve to change the ending! THE ENDING! It’s like they questioned the decisions made by John in the novel.

I didn’t realize that Hollywood can be this heartless.

Dear Mr Sparks, if it’s your dream to see your novels on the big screen, this is not they way to do it.