A cute blond stranger who calls herself Katie (Julianne Hough) arrives in the seaside tourist village, but she seems apprehensive and preoccupied, even when she gets romantic with a handsome local widower and single dad (Josh Duhamel). So what’s eating Katie? Maybe it’s the realization that she’s stuck in a movie by Lasse Hallström, aka Mr. Hugs, The Great Homogenizer, the King of Creamed Corn, maker of
Dear John and
The Cider House Rules. It’s bad enough that Hallström – working off a screenplay by Leslie Bohem and Dana Stevens, adapted from a novel by Nicholas Sparks – combines a domestic violence melodrama with the cuddle-fest, but the surprise ending will probably cause you to regurgitate your popcorn. You’ve been warned. Costarring David Lyons as the wife beater and Cobie Smulders as Jo, Katie’s barely-there neighbor. (115 min.)
By
Kelly Vance