Luke (Scott Eastwood) and Sophia (Britt Robertson) enjoy getting to know each other while dining al fresco
Eventful, polished, and knuckle-bitingly dull, the 10th film adapted from a novel by Nicholas Sparks, combines fate, bull riding and some powerful Hollywood bloodlines among its young cast. In sun-dappled North Carolina, a studly bull rider Luke (Scott "son of Clint" Eastwood) falls in love with cute Wake Forest art major, Sophia (Britt Robertson) who will soon leave for a coveted intern job in New York. Fortunately, an aged car accident casualty, Ira (Alan Alda) gets Sophie to read some of his diary-like love letters to his late wife, Ruth, which triggers a parallel story, set in the 1940s. Jack Huston (grandson of John) plays the gawky young Ira, with a vibrant Oona Chaplin (granddaughter of Charlie) as his cultured Austrian-Jewish immigrant wife, Ruth. Their story is intended as an example to the young folk of how love requires sacrifice, though the movie's ridiculous ending also allows for lucrative miracles.