Lo mejor de mí

The story line is worthless and you walk away hating the movie, because of the story line. Everything that can happen bad, happens to these two and in the end they are destroyed again......not one positive happens to them in this story. Books and movies are supposed to be entertainment. Yes you can have some bad in movies to, but the whole thing? It's like, you meet your love of your life and she dies, then she's reincarnated and you find each other again and you die and then the kids die and then the cheating husband walks away rich......it's like why would anyone want to watch this. This is not entertainment, this is solely an attempt to make a tear jerker on top of a tear jerker and all they succeed at is making you mad at how disturbingly sadistic the story line is destroying their lives over and over again.

... which may not necessarily be a good thing.

Oddly, you divide the two almost at the midway point, that is, the one hour mark.

The first movie is a really sweet love story about lost love. It features a lot of flashbacks but luckily the actors playing the flashbacks and the actors playing 'real time' are all very competent, do a great job,the script works well, and the audience has a fun ride.

If the first hour were a movie on its own, I would give it a very strong rating.

However almost at the turn of the second hour (two hours BTW is much too long for this story) the connection between audience and viewer (this important factor discussed in many of my IMDb reviews) starts to fade as many story complications set in. And the script becomes lost in the various arcs.

I will not go into the complications but let me say that by the "climax" of the last Act the viewer may wonder if he/she dozed off and woke up in front of the TV watching an episode of JUSTIFIED. Enough said.

If the second hour were a movie on its own, I would give it a very low rating.

As an entire movie as it now stands, this film can be a rough ride for the viewer, and that is not a good thing.

Notes:

* always happy to see Michelle Monaghan, an actress under-used these days. Real star quality.

* Liana Liberato has a nice career ahead and better still actually looks like a young Michelle Monaghan, which is more than I can say of the casting choices for the male leads

* here is a tip for casting directors. FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE. Help you avoid the problem of casting two actors playing the same role (one in flashback) WHO LOOK NOTHING AT ALL LIKE EACH OTHER

This actually made me sad. It was corny and cliché like 80% of the time yes, but it was actually kind of great, and I liked it. Rare

I was looking for a nice romantic flick to bring my girlfriend to so it could set the mood for the evening. Well, that plan failed and I ended up bringing my ex to the movies to see it instead. It really touched me in a deep way that no other love story has in the past. Sounds kinda corny, but for me, it touched on some areas. Well, needless to say, we held hands all during the movie and more later.

Okay, so I read up on the reviews before coming to see this movie and they all made it sound like a boring box office flop, BUT reviews can be very deceiving because this was a diamond that was tarnished by viewers who had NO clue what a romantic flick this really is about! So my advice to you is to go and see it with an open mind and heart and let the movie just unveil itself to your heart and mind and see what happens... best wishes!

Good romantic films are almost as rare as good comedies. I really did not ask for anything special, as I like "chick flicks" and Hollywood has such a love affair with action movies, Hollywood has almost stopped making them. Nonetheless, I really disliked this one; because, even with the clichés, this movie had so much promise. The movie opens with a fine action sequence; and James Marsden is a really watchable actor. However, as soon as the parallel love stories begin, the movie falls apart. First of all "young Amanda" (Liana Liberato) not only does not look much like "older Amanda" (Michelle Monaghan), their body languages and acting styles are completely different. There is even a bigger disparity with "young Dawson" (Luke Bracey) and "older Dawson" (James Marsden). Thanks to terrific performances by Liana Liberato and Gerald McRaney, the flashback sequences are much more entertaining than the present sequences, even though Michael Hoffman's direction is much better in the present sequences. Hoffman shoots WAY too many of the flashback sequences as medium shots, when closeups would have been far better. Even the ending seems tacked on and trite.

Except for Liana Liberato and Gerald McRaney, "The Best of Me" is anything but. I give "The Best of Me" a "5".