With its mini-series rhythms and TV movie treatment of serious illness (Alzheimer's), Nick Cassavetes's period-hopping romance sits more snugly on the small screen. It's still slushier than a February thaw, though.
Most of the drama is set in the '40s, where Southern belle Rachel McAdams and country lad Ryan Gosling pit their star-crossed love against parental objection, social convention and World War Two. But the real emotion lies with their present-day counterparts Gena Rowlands and James Garner, who stump up more gravitas than the movie deserves. Some middling raunch and picture-postcard lensing help pass the time between the oldies' scenes, but it's all too trite to trouble the tear ducts.
DVD Extras:
A busy platter: a Making Of, location and casting featurettes (all pint-sized), plus one gab-track apiece from Cassavetes and source novelist Nicholas Sparks. Better than both is editor Alan Heim, who alerts us to every censor-distressing hint of nipple in the deleted scenes.
