Safe Haven, 2013.
Directed by Lasse Hallström
Starring Julianne Hough, Josh Duhamel, Cobie Smulders and David Lyons.
SYNOPSIS:
A young woman with a mysterious past lands in Southport, North Carolina where her bond with a widower forces her to confront the dark secret that haunts her.
Here we go again. Just about every year we get another romance film based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks. While I can’t confirm whether his books are actually any good, I can certainly say that the films based on his books are far from good. Other than The Notebook, which I actually found to be watchable, all of the films do a horrible job at showcasing any romance whatsoever and usually have some asinine twist thrown in for no reason at all. Safe Haven is in no way like The Notebook, but just like all the other films. In fact it may actually be worse.
Julianne Hough stars as Katie, a woman who is on the run from committing a terrible act. We don’t know exactly what she did but we see glimpses of what looks like her killing someone, and the police are definitely after her. She makes her way down to a nice little town in North Carolina where she meets one of the locals Alex (Josh Duhamel), who is as nice as can be. He has two kids and recently lost his wife to cancer. Katie tries to start her life over in this new town; she’s dyed her hair, bought a new house and even made a friend out of neighbor Jo (Cobie Smulders). However, she’s not off the hook just yet. The police officer (David Lyons) who is trying to track her down won’t let up and will do anything he can to find her.
There are many problems with this film from the romance between the two leads, to the awkward setup between this being half romance and half mystery, to the fact that there are two twists in a film that doesn’t even need one twist. One thing I cannot stress enough about romantic films is that the two leads must be believable together and must have some really great chemistry between them. That is not the case with Hough and Duhamel, who both look like they could care less if they end up together in the end or not.
The film is structured very badly because it jumps back and forth between our two leads and the police officer trying to track down Katie. It doesn’t lend enough time to let the relationship between Katie and Alex build, which is why nothing between them works throughout the entire film. For this to be a romantic film, they really do skimp on the romance.
Now let me get to the two twists. The first is something that you can see coming right from the beginning and you should be able to figure out about halfway through. Once the film is essentially over we get a second twist that is not needed in any way, shape or form. It really is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever seen in a film and the way they shove it in right there at the end makes it that much worse. I haven’t seen a twist that bad since the twist in Remember Me.
Safe Haven tries to be two different films and ends up failing at both. None of the romance is there and the mystery part of the story couldn’t be less interesting. Had Hough and Duhamel given decent performances the film might have been watchable, but their bad performances and the two twist endings make this one a must skip.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Jake Peffer
Originally published June 1, 2013. Updated March 1, 2021.
