Kurt Loder Reviews 'Dear John'

FROM MTV.COM: "Dear John" is a movie that tells all you need to know right in the title: soldier boy meets perfect girl; they bond, kiss, irritate a jealous suitor; boy ships out for combat, girl pines at home; love letters criss-cross the sea in torrents; she suddenly stops writing; months pass; then he receives ... one last letter. I'm afraid the boy's name is in fact John.

The most interesting thing about this picture — the thing that might make it work for a viewer in a certain woozy frame of mind — is the deadpan sincerity that director Lasse Hallström brings to the material. He doesn't see the story as a shop-worn anachronism (it's set in 2001, but it feels like 1944), and he doesn't milk it for heart-wringing sentiment (the plot does all the milking on its own). He plays it straight, and invites us to sniffle along if we want. There's something kind of admirable about this, I guess, in a going-down-with-the-ship sort of way.

'Dear John': Dead Letter, By Kurt Loder

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