Dear John

Dir. Lasse Hallstrom. Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried.

He's a good director, I suppose - but then I've only seen two of his films since liking The Cider House Rules (The Shipping News and Chocolat) and neither of them were any better than okay.

Special Forces soldier Channing Tatum falls in love while at home on two-week leave. With Savannah, a college student on spring break building a house for Habitat for Humanity. Of course she is. So she goes back to college and he goes to complete his 12-month enlistment, this being 2000 and so pre-War on Terror! (Screamer is mine, but I think it works better, don't you? War on Terror!) They write each other, promising eternal love and that, and their love is tested when John re-enlists after 9/11.

It's easy to be cynical about this kind of romantic drama, which is probably why I'm doing it. There's a good reason though - this genre is really very hard to get right. Does Hallstrom get it right? I don't know, I've only seen the extended trailer, and parts of that look amazing, while other parts look dreadful. Given that there's a major emotional turn mid-way, could this be a film of two halves?

I don't know, I haven't seen it.

She looks brilliant in this, by the way. He doesn't.