The New Notebook?

The trailer for Nicholas Sparks’ The Best of Me promises previously thwarted love blooming again and beautiful locations…

This year marks the ten-year anniversary of The Notebook, and the reign of Nicholas Sparks movie adaptations as guaranteed romantic weepies. Ever since Message in a Bottle, Sparks’ name has been a byword for extraordinary romance happening to ordinary people in beautiful autumnal locales, with either a dash of lovers finding their way back to each other, or cancer. Hollywood has come a-knocking on the best-selling author so often we’re pretty sure some producer has built a granny flat onto his probable Southern mansion.

The latest output from the Sparks machine is The Best of Me and it’s giving off serious The Notebook vibes. Based on the 2011 book of the same name, The Best of Me tells the story of blue collar Dawson and likeable rich girl Amanda, two young lovers from different social strata who are reunited twenty years after their separation by societal expectations, an incident involving a gun and a jail sentence for Dawson. Twenty years and some cast changes later, James Marsden (the reporter in 27 Dresses) and Michelle Monaghan (the bride in Made of Honour) meet again at the funeral of a friend and all the feelings reignite. Nicholas Sparks loves second chances. See Safe Haven and The Lucky One. See The Lucky One mostly for shirtless Zac Efron scenes.

The Best of Me is released in October. Are you looking forward to seeing it? Or do you think all these movies involving meeting secondary school boyfriends again omit serious mortification vibes?

Jeanne Sutton @jeannedesutun