Uma Longa Jornada

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.

Nicholas Sparks' movies are almost always seemingly made to please the hopeless romantics and the fairytale romance-loving audience, they're expected to manipulate emotions, no matter how extremely recognizable their set ups may be, and they often triumph. But in THE LONGEST RIDE, the attempt barely mimics such success, primarily because of its confusing and ever shifting narrative, whose backbone runs on two romantic sagas spanning across different generations.

THE LONGEST RIDE sprawls across two love stories set in the modern day and seventy years ago. In modern day, it has Luke and Sophia, two utterly good-looking people, who at first sight falls in love with each other, they stumbles upon Ira, a World War II veteran, who himself, has his own epic love story to tell—that one he shared with his wife, Ruth, seventy years ago. More often, these two love stories bear no difference from each other, as both couples go through similar hardships to carry their relationships.

The idea of crisscrossing time to present two supposedly compelling love stories, perhaps, is to double the magnitude of emotions and deliver a more poignant result, yet such very confusing structure is what actually makes giving both the stories with equal level of sentiment, difficult. Still, no matter how one appears to hold more promise of an engaging love story than the other, the tedious and confusing process of going back and forth across two different time frames, and the fact that the narrative failed to establish concrete connection between the two stories, renders less than satisfying result. There's also this chemistry that Luke and Sophia seem to be lacking, regardless of how incredibly beautiful they are as persons, and that, may also be the reason why the other story, strikes as more riveting than theirs. This makes the entirety of the movie—its interesting premise and structure yet often convoluted, and its thinly drawn characters—hard to appreciate and care about. Nevertheless, in the eyes of a true Sparks' fan, and of anyone easily drawn to such anthems, THE LONGEST RIDE easily serves its purpose.

Spanning through generations and intertwining love affairs, THE LONGESTh RIDE would have been more satisfying had it treated both the stories with equal attention. That's not to say it has no small moments of perfection, because it does, but as a whole, the movie just falls below average.

Enjoyable tearjerker flick paralleling modern love story between bull rider and college student with that of an older gentleman who is on his deathbed. I personally thought that the story of the older couple was more developed and less cliché. The plot is overall enjoyable. The cinematography of North Carolina mountains is beautiful. My favorite scene was the last bull riding scene which is in slow motion and uses punchy bass (only real use of LFE effects in the movie).

On a personal note, I was saddened to read that Rango the Bull passed away after shooting the movie but before the film was released. Apparently he was a real life superstar in the rodeo circuit.

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.