A determined heroine with a secret past, a devoted man who just wants love and a beach setting. This definitely sounds like another Nicholas Sparks book.
“Safe Haven” focuses on Katie (Julianne Hough), a runaway from Boston , hoping to start over in the small town of Southport, North Carolina. Katie’s goal to remain unnoticed fails when Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widower with two young kids, falls in love with her. Alex tries to help Katie feel safe in his little town, but a secret keeps her from truly opening up to him. When she finally loosens herself up, their relationship is threatened by her past.
Hough played a convincing role as a vulnerable, young woman. Her character was clearly paranoid that something from her old life would come and take her away from Southport. Hough also did a nice job when interacting with Alex’s kids, Lexie (Mimi Kirkland) and Josh (Noah Lomax). Although the kids were cute in the beginning of the film, Kirkland’s over-enthusiastic attitude wore me out by the end of the film while Lomax turned Josh into a depressed little kid.
Duhamel played the role of a lonely widower well, but the age difference between Duhamel and Hough is distracting. Alex is supposed to be a few years older than Katie, not 16 years older. Even though Duhamel is nice to look at, his relationship with Hough wasn’t as charismatic as it could have been with a younger actor.
While the plot of “Safe Haven” is intriguing, the movie itself was disappointing. Although the director kept the majority of important facts from the novel, the missing little details certainly added up to a letdown. It’s really not that hard to keep simple things, such as names or character’s attitudes, in accordance with the book.
Major points in the story were left to the end, when viewers needed to see them at the beginning to understand what was going on. The added scenes tried to add to Alex and Katie’s growing relationship, but it really just distracted viewers. I felt like I had to force myself to stay awake during the movie. It definitely did not need to run for almost two hours.
Overall, the acting wasn’t half bad, but the way the plot was portrayed and the order in which the events played out wasn’t too exciting. If you are truly dying to see it, wait until it comes out on Redbox, because it honestly isn’t worth the price at the theaters.
