A very pointless and inconsistent movie overall. Biggest problem: plot. Or lack thereof.

Rating: 3/10 (1 April 2010)

I just saw this movie today with a friend. Let me start off by saying I'm totally impartial toward Miley Cyrus b/c I think a lot of bad reviews on this movie will only make a point of how bad she is. I really didn't find this to be the case. Honestly, the problem with this movie lies in the story. It was very random from start to finish (as my friend pointed out, starting off slowly and then rushing sloppily to an end to try to tie things together) and had very expected 'twists'. During the whole movie, my friend and I kept predicting the next sequence of events. {The perfect 'everyone's-together-Dad-finally-accepted-my-boyfriend' scene: i turn to my friend, "someone's going to die". Dad gets up: my friend says "oh, something's gonna happen to him", the fact that Will ends up considering Columbia, that they end up together, etc. etc.} Also, this was full of clichés {the fact that Ronnie believed whatever the stupid blonde girl told her and then got all angry with Will for it on a dime, the separated couple gets back together, a child is resentful and rebellious over her parents' divorce, there's a character who's filthy rich but still has problems in his life--all big shocks} And so many random parts of the plot. For instance, Will lost his brother. We can already tell from his mother that his family/life isn't perfect. Why did they even need that? I mean, his father only mentions that brother once during dinner with Ronnie I think. It was very useless to me. And the way that Will was actually connected to the church fire thing through his friend and that's why the stained-glass window is so important and also what eventually causes Ronnie to reject Will was SO sloppily done. It was as if everything was supposed to be connected but it just came out jumbled and messy. THEN we have Ronnie and the acting. I don't blame Miley Cyrus. I don't blame *any* of the actors. Their lines were horrible and awkward. Their emotional ranges were so random I couldn't get in tune with any of the characters. The actors were so close to fitting the molds of their characters but then something would happen and it would get awkward again. And the way they had Ronnie transition from 'rebellious' to softened was choppy and strange. The actors did what they could with their dialogue and characters but in my opinion this was just badly written. I did cry at the end b/c they really do pull at your emotions, what with the song and the light and close-ups of the brother crying, it was hard to watch. But the whole time I was thinking "this really is a bad movie". And that's how I left. Feeling that I had just seen a bad movie. What I will say is that I at least appreciated the acting (making due with those choppy scenes) and a few transition techniques of some scenery shots which were actually quite beautiful and artistic. The highlights were definitely just the settings and scenery, as well as Cyrus' piano playing. But not a movie I'd recommend. Just skip it.