Been there... and a comment on the DEAR JOHN film reviews

Rating: 10/10 (14 February 2010)

I went to see Dear John just to see if they caught the emotion involved with this sort of thing. Mine occurred in 1969, and it is still sometimes painfully disturbing to me. The film caught the intense youthful attraction, the relationship that can develop in a short period of time before deployment, the love that resists separation, but only for so long, the intense feeling of loyalty for comrades that you've trained with and fought with, the addition of the 9/11 country-at-war component into his decision to reenlist, and the painful solitary existence suffered by a youthful female waiting and living only by letters and consequently driving her to another relationship, despite her love for her soldier. "Frailty, thy name be woman." (Shakespeare) As to many of the comments, I can say to the negative ones, I saw the film and disagree. The film was right-on. I don't care ever about comparing a book to a movie. You can't compare apples and oranges. One should judge a film for its making and its cast and acting. The book is the book, and the film is the film. I'll give you an example of the reverse, a bad book made into a classic film. The Graduate is a classic film that broke many Hollywood moulds and was superb as a film. As a book, however, it was cheesy and redundant and, in my opinion, poorly written. So, one should judge a film solely on its merits, not on a comparison to a book. It is not a legitimate judgment, nor does it make for a legitimate review. The only time I would include a book in a review is if the filmmaker leaves out a detail in the film that is included in the book, and it is a necessary component to understand the meaning of the film or the outcome of the film. For example, the ending of 2001 A Space Odyssey, was completely unintelligible to the ordinary viewer if one had not read the book. That was a major flaw that affected one's ability to understand and enjoy the film. This is an example of when the book can be introduced into a film's review. Dear John was a perfectly clear and understandable film. There's one more thing. Some of the male lead's (Channing Tatum's) detractors said in lengthy reviews that his acting was abysmal. I thought he was accurate in his portrayal of a young soldier living with the thought of imminent combat or deployment to a lonely and difficult assignment anywhere in the world. Also, his father stole the joy of life from him, and not intentionally. He, as an actor, portrayed that perfectly. I have never seen nor heard of him before, and I've never seen his prior work, but he was right-on for the character he played. Why do reviewers waste their time comparing films to the book? It is not a legitimate component of a review other than what I mentioned. Please don't waste your time and mine with comments like, "The book was much better." Who cares?! Dear John is a very good film.