When people say romance films are addicting, they usually mean that they offer equivalent fantasies and fulfill  a person’s desires.  But “Dear John,” directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, seems unreal and incredibly cliché

It follows the same structure in both form and presentation. “Dear John,” with its ironic title, is composed of clichés branching out from the seed concept of love letters and long distance love. Usually, great films are not so easily summarized, but “Dear John” is entirely contained within that conceptual framework.

Almost all the plot revelations come as artificial leaps.  The happy couple will begin fighting all of the sudden for no clear reason other than it builds drama. Similarly, while they are conversing,  it is an eventuality that it begins to rain and they get to make out in the downpour. Because they are artificially injected, “Dear John” has every scene and every emotion a fan of the genre could want, but in the absence of any true motivation, character establishment or real plot work. Things just happen and audiences don’t mind too much because the results are what they are paying to see. But to be truly effective emotionally, these typical melodramatic scenes need to appear to originate organically from the characters and their relationship.  And it is only with some pseudo-religious faith that anyone could see this film and believe the actions were warranted.

In a world where there are no couples and only broken families, John and Savannah might as well be the last two humans on Earth. The entire film is predicated upon their relationship—built over just two weeks together and meant to last years while John serves in the Middle East. But within that time very little actually happens between them. They never share anything of themselves or build anything together. Instead, all we see of the two is how they each fit a sexual archetype: John being strong, capable and potentially dangerous (he’s threatening, though not to her), and Savannah being a warm, virtuous mediator with a natural affinity towards children. The only thing they share together is one insipid motif about the size of the moon, which probably made the trailers.

This is a film about love, but who could love the characters? And then who could believe they love each other? John’s time in the military and the film’s semi-exploitative use of 9/11 do little to enrich his character. The one relationship that carried any weight at all was between John and his father. But that relationship was partially marred by the awkward subplot of autism in the film.  John’s father, as well as Alan, the young son of Savannah’s family friend Tim, are both autistic to varying degrees.  This leads to some haphazard drama and tension, but it isn’t until Savannah explains her belief that autistic people have a “horse sense” for bad things about to happen that things get really bonkers.

Tim, played by Henry Thomas, best known as Elliot from “E.T.,” was a quirky delight. Too bad they never found a way to justify his omnipresence, which made, him closely resemble  a  sitcom comic relief.  Brief moments of abstract comedy lift the veil of melodrama and reveal a filmmaker with at least some knowledge of realism. And the two leads at least developed strong physical chemistry.

chronicle@colum.edu