Blonde heroine with denim shorts and a dark past? Check.
Sensitive hunk with a tortured soul? Check.
Sundappled setting? Check.
You know what you’re getting in a Nicholas Sparks adaptation, but Lasse Hallström’s stab - in which Katie (Julianne Hough) escapes to a small seaside town and finds out love really does conquer all - is by the numbers even by Sparks’ standards.
It’s hard to imagine a blander duo than Hough and Josh Duhamel as they knock awkwardly against one another in their painfully telegraphed love scenes, and a third-act twist is unintentionally hilarious.
