The Choice | Film Review

Hey Guys x

This used to be on Netflix, and I remember watching at least 20 minutes of it before getting bored and deciding on something better. But recently it came on TV and I thought that I might as well give it a chance. It definitely wasn't as boring as I remembered!

Travis (Benjamin Walker) and Gabby (Teresa Palmer) are next-door neighbours who don't like each other. At all. He's too easygoing for her, and she's too uptight for him. But when Gabby's boyfriend (Tom Welling) leaves town, the two find themselves getting closer, and their attraction is undeniable. But can these two people who bother each other so much, really be together?

I enjoyed this movie, but I have to say that it's based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, and you can totally tell.

It has the cliche trope of 'two people who hate each other' that everyone pretends to hate but secretly loves. While I find it a bit overdone, I guess it does make things more interesting than if two people had an obvious attraction from the moment they saw each other. Personally for me, I'm a bigger fan of the best friends to lovers trope. Or no tropes at all!

The film is extremely predictable. If you've even glanced at your TV screen when a Nicholas Sparks movie is on, you know exactly what's going to happen, and this is no different. There are a few surprises along the way, but ultimately you know what this film is about already.

One thing that bothered me about the film is that, we're obviously supposed to see Gabby as a good person, but to do that, we'd have to ignore all the bad things she does. As you can guess from my description, she isn't exactly innocent when her boyfriend goes out of town. And the thing is, in films like this a lot of the time, the writers make the current boyfriend this awful person so that cheating is justified, but to be honest, there was nothing wrong with her boyfriend. Whether he was right for her or not, the way that she treated him was completely unwarranted.

About 3/4 of the way through, the film takes a weird turn. I don't want to give anything away, but it isn't a beginning to end, will they/won't they, love story. After a while, you begin to wonder what the point of the movie actually is.

Now, whether the premise of the movie was good or not, all of the actors did a great job with these roles. I was a huge fan of both Teresa Palmer and Tom Welling before seeing this, and it definitely made me appreciate their acting skills more.

Overall, this feels like a hallmark movie, but definitely goes a bit deeper than your average rom-com.

5/10

Lou