The Lucky One

Post-traumatic stress disorder can be one of the most serious and one of the most underappreciated afflictions stemming from war, whether it’s soldiers dealing with mental scars from the battlefield or families on the homefront coping with the loss of a loved one.

Leave it to author Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook) to trivialize the condition as a lazy plot device in one of his sappy romance novels, The Lucky One, which is the latest big-screen Sparks adaptation to place aggressive tear-jerking as a priority over dramatic integrity.

The film, directed with maximum sentimental emphasis by Scott Hicks (Shine), insensitively argues that residual psychological wartime wounds can be alleviated with hugs and soothing piano music.

Zac Efron stars as Logan, a scarred Marine returning from his third tour of duty in Iraq.  He carries with him a photo of a young woman that he found in the sand, and which credits for saving him from an explosion.

Logan tracks down Beth (Taylor Schilling), the woman in the photo, a divorced single mother whose brother died in the war, working at a small-town dog kennel in Louisiana with her quirky grandmother (Blythe Danner).

He awkwardly takes a job alongside Beth and the two develop a romance, much to the chagrin of Beth’s abusive ex-husband (Jay Ferguson), who also happens to be the town sheriff. Then there’s that matter of the photo that Logan has never mentioned.

The story, along with the melodramatic screenplay by Will Fetters (Remember Me), closely follows the typical Sparks formula, from discussions of fate and secrets from the past, to an outrageous rainy-night climax.

It’s both far-fetched and predictable, with too many cutesy, eye-rolling contrivances to count. But hey, at least the bayou scenery looks great.

The primary highlight is Efron, who gives an understated performance and generates chemistry with Schilling (Atlas Shrugged: Part I), even if the screenplay prevents their relationship from being believable. Ferguson, meanwhile, is a disaster as the jealous husband who goes over the top to the point of becoming a cartoon.

The Lucky One might appeal to those willing to suspend their disbelief to an extreme degree, but everyone else will be counting down the clichés.

 

Rated PG-13, 101 minutes.