The Longest Ride

My husband and I really enjoyed this. It's sweet and romantic. If you like a movie without swearing and gratuitous sex, etc., this is a feel-good story. Alan Alda was wonderful, and we enjoyed seeing him in this role. Scott Eastwood was convincing as a PBR rider trying not to become a has-been and working through issues of his own. There's action for the guys (bull riding), and something for the ladies (bull riding, and a flash of Scott Eastwood's nice buttocks-thank you for that-so there's something for everyone. The actress who played Alan Alda's wife was absolutely darling. Very romantic film about two people who had a meet-cute and found their lives changed in many ways.

If you're thinking that this film has a familiar look to it that's because The Longest Ride And The Notebook are both originating from the pen of Nicholas Sparks. This is the story of a seemingly mismatched young couple Scott Eastwood and Britt Robertson and an old man with his memories who cements their relationship.

Nostalgia is bursting all over the place with The Longest Ride. Scott Eastwood, son of Clint Eastwood is an aspiring bull rider competing in the Professional Bull Riders who gets dumped in the lap of spectator Britt Robertson. That's a plot gambit borrowed A Lady Takes A Chance where John Wayne made the acquaintance of Jean Arthur that way.

As her girlfriends tell her who wouldn't want to make it with a cowboy and I can agree there. But while the chemistry is there, they come from different worlds. Eastwood is the son of a bull rider and he lives on the ranch that he inherited from his dad with his mother Lolita Davidovitch. He knows his days as a professional bull rider are limited and he wants the prize money while he still can afford. He's flirting dangerously with permanent injury and death more than most bull riders as he's had a dangerous concussion already.

Robertson is an art history major and wants a career in that and may move to New York as that's the capital of the art world in the USA. Somebody is going to have to make a sacrifice.

One day both save the life of an elderly Alan Alda who kind of adopts the two of them and shares the memories of the wonderful married life he had with his late wife. Flashbacks give us big clues as to why these people were so right for each other and in his youth Alda is played by Jack Huston, grandson of John Huston and Oona Chaplin who has both Charlie Chaplin and Eugene O'Neill in her pedigree is his wife who was a refugee from the Nazis. For that matter Alan Alda is the son of Robert Alda speaking of nepotism.

Alda is really the one stealing the show here. As appealing and romantic as young Eastwood and Robertson are, Alda gives a really great performance and his introductory narrations really give flashback sequences some real poignancy. I hope there's some Oscar consideration for Alda in the Supporting Actor category.

Of course it all works out for the young people as you knew it would. But for it to happen young Eastwood hits the equivalent of a big lottery ticket. And I'm not talking about the PBR Las Vegas finals either.

For romantics of all ages is The Longest Ride.

After an automobile crash, the lives of a young couple intertwine with a much older man, as he reflects back on a past love.

The latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation stars Britt Robertson and Scott Eastwood. When it comes to Nicholas Sparks you're either in or out. Director George Tillman Jr. embraced the sanitized banality of Sparks world with a straight face. It's easy to tease those films. It's harder to admit that Sparks is very good at it. He's thoroughly uncynical about love and believes that love is so powerful that it can salvage lives and control the weather.

A significant part of the interest here surely lies in the film's role as a showcase for four moderately known actors. First Robertson, who co-stared in the highly anticipated Tomorrowland. She feels a little over the top, her character's reactions seem too much like movie reaction and not something we'll do in real life. Eastwood, in his first significant starring role, but his potential remains to be determined as he comfortably inhabits a western-style-character.

Britt Robertson and Scott Eastwood The two of them have nothing in common except golden good looks and a fondness for looking at each other and grinning. Still, they do this well enough that we buy their chemistry. This time characters are keeping apart not by scheming bad guys or misunderstandings but by a genuine concern for one another's happiness. By contrast, Oona Chaplin, grand-daughter of Charles, is the sole younger actor to pop here. Playing the only one of these youthful characters with any boldness or inclination to speak her own mind. It goes without saying that the ladies in Sparks adaptations are all beautiful; but let's be honest, his films are better known for their man. From Gosling to Efron, Costner to Tatum , a romantic hero is the heart and soul of those movies.

Moreover, Nicholas Sparks adaptations are like Michael Bay's movies. You know exactly what you're going to see: a lot of explosions, high contrast, saturated colors and low framed angles of people stepping out of cars. In a NS movie you have old people talking about when they were young and they first met the love of their life and how sad and tragic that is. Plus, young people who want to fall in love but can't because life is tough and something is in the way.

Director makes full use of the lights, black leather and glamour of this modern breed of Rock & Roll riders. The settings and compositions are picture-postcard. For the most part, it's a well directed movie with sold performances. The cinematography is good. It's a good movie that we've seen a million times before, just repackaged with a different structure.

Finally, as usual the ending, in Sparks world, when happiness rains, it pours!

Overall, a good romance never hurst anyone and ultimately can make us endure an implausible plot.

Two stories in one, which is what made this movie, had it just been one or the other I don't think I would have written this review. It certainly didn't hurt that they cast Alan Alda in it too, he is such a wonderful actor, no matter what role he plays, this included. This is a simple love story, times 2. This is not any brilliant "oh my gosh no one has ever made a movie this deep and this incredible before" type of movie. It's mushy, sweet, romantic, hopeful, sad, happy, sometimes predictable, and when it was over I said, "I really enjoyed that movie". That's what it's all about, for me, enjoying the movie. If it makes me feel good in the process, then that's even better. I would recommend this, but not to someone who is not the least bit romantic or hopeful, because you will be one of the people who writes a negative review.