Safe Haven

Lasse Hallström’s second adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks book, after 2010’s Dear John, Safe Haven follows Julianne Hough’s Katie as she escapes from her abusive husband (David Lyons’ Tierney) to a small coastal community – where she inevitably falls for a hunky local (Josh Duhamel’s Alex) with a tragic backstory of his own. There’s certainly nothing innovative or novel about the well-worn setup, and yet, in its early stages, Safe Haven does hold a fair amount of promise – with Hallström’s expectedly picturesque visuals complemented by likeable, charismatic work from both Hough and Duhamel. But the filmmaker, working from a script by Dana Stevens and Gage Lansky, employs an excessively deliberate pace that grows more and more problematic as time (slowly) progresses, with the narrative, which has been padded out to an obscene degree, devoted primarily to needless elements that couldn’t possibly be less interesting. (It’s telling that Katie and Alex don’t share their first kiss until around the one-hour mark.) The viewer can’t, as a result, help but wish that Hallström would just get on with it already, with the movie’s less-than-enthralling atmosphere compounded by an emphasis on time-wasting subplots (eg Tierney’s continuing efforts at tracking down Hough’s abused figure). It subsequently goes without saying that the feel-good finale is unable to pack the emotional punch that Hallström is obviously striving for, with the inclusion of an absolutely ludicrous last-minute twist, which was in the book, admittedly, confirming Safe Haven‘s place as a thoroughly misbegotten piece of work.

*1/2 out of ****