Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.2.10
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I suppose this could be viewed as a back-handed compliment, but the fact is inescapable: Miley Cyrus lacks the acting chops to play a credible bad girl.
That's a bit of a problem, because this big-screen adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' The Last Song demands that Cyrus' Ronnie Miller be quite the little bee-yatch in the first act ... and she simply can't pull it off. The film grinds to a thumping halt every time she tries to be unpleasant; it's like an acting exercise, with a novice thespian pretending to be disagreeable ... and it simply doesn't work.
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| Having rejoined the human race, and finally flashing the smile that helped earn Miley Cyrus an acting career, Ronnie shyly warms to her father's (Greg Kinnear) patient overtures ... no doubt because she's as happy as a young girl in love could be. Hang onto the good feeling, Ronnie, because it never lasts in a Nicholas Sparks story! |
On the other hand, the fault may lie with director Julie Ann Robinson, who fluffs several other key scenes in this film, a few of which have nothing to do with Cyrus. Robinson has a boatload of episodic TV experience — including Grey's Anatomy, Big Love and Pushing Daisies — so she obviously knows her craft; the question, then, is whether she can coax persuasive performances out of untrained actors.
The evidence would suggest not.
Greg Kinnear, who plays Ronnie's father, Steve, is this film's strongest asset; his work is delicate, sensitive and wryly humorous by turns. He acts circles around Cyrus ... and so does little Bobby Coleman (The Martian Child
), who plays Ronnie's younger brother, Jonah. He's impressively endearing. Because this is Nicholas Sparks territory, we can expect a scenario involving attractive romantic leads with troubled lives, who meet, fall in love and then find their blossoming relationship sabotaged by assorted contrived plot devices.
The Last Song certainly is no different; we open with divorced parents and troubled teens, move on to a sidebar issue involving an atrociously abusive boyfriend, digress momentarily with a dysfunctional family rent asunder by the tragic death of a child, and then build to the narrative's Heartbreaking Big Surprise (a "surprise" only to those not paying attention).
Oh, and we can't overlook the church fire that serves as a prologue, and generates its own whiff of intrigue: Was it arson? And, if so, by whom?
