What would have been the second best Nicholas Sparks movie ever,except Sparks didn't write it
This one's for you if you've been waiting for a great American romancer like The Notebook. What makes this one unusual is it's a 3-in-1 romance. It's complicated to explain but very easy to follow on film. Dennis Quaid plays a best-selling author who wrote a book about an struggling author who finally broke through after finding a long lost manuscript , claiming it as his own writing. It becomes somewhat of a thriller when Jeremy Irons shows up as the real writer with his own moving back story.
Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana reportedly became a real-life couple for 5 minutes (a Hollywood eternity) after starring as husband and wife in The Words. Olivia Wilde has a brief role as a groupie who's out to seduce Dennis Quaid. Wow. She sure makes the most of it. She oozes sexuality. The third love story is the antithesis of the movie's title – it has maybe 6 spoken lines from Iron's character as a young man (played by Ben Barnes) and his wooing of a young French woman just after World War 2 ends.
You don't have to bring the tissues to this one. But it will leave you with several messages. Foremost: you and only you have to deal with the decisions you make in life.
In a world of ribbon-wrapped Hollywood endings, I had no idea where this one was going. Yes guys - it's a chick flick but so much better than what she usually drags you to see.
3 stars