Dear John

Love means having to say you're sorry, when it's as bland and bloodless as "Dear John."

The latest in an apparently unstoppable line of adaptations from the works of best-selling novelist Nicholas Sparks ("The Notebook," "Nights in Rodanthe," et al), this tepid little meringue is certain to arouse anemic sighs and jerk plenteous tears from adolescent audiences, easy marks for love that's earnest and bittersweet. "Dear John" is the equivalent of cinematic Prozac, assuring us that the spectrum of human emotion is not only narrow, but also short on the hot colors of pain and pleasure.

Not surprising, then, that it's on a beach washed in late-afternoon sun that strong, silent John Tyree (Channing Tatum), a Special Forces warrior on leave, encounters and instantly falls for Savannah (Amanda Seyfried), a blond-maned beauty with a heart of gold. What follows is the kind of wordless falling-in-love montage we've seen a hundred times, underscored by goopy music: For two magical weeks, John and Savannah walk the beach, kiss in the rain, and plight their troth in all the poses good-looking people assume on billboards and travel posters. His shoulders and her platinum tresses were clearly meant for each other.

Did some hotshot demographer lab-test the chemistry between hunkster Tatum ("G.I. Joe," "Stop-Loss") and adorable, though alarmingly fish-eyed Seyfried (TV's "Big Love," "Mamma Mia!"), and mistake generic mushiness for "Romeo and Juliet" magic? Far from sparking the heat of real passion, the Tatum-Seyfried hookup is as emotionally engaging as watching super-cute puppies at play. When their sunny romance suddenly flips over into utterly contrived and gratuitous hard times, it's hard to care what happens to this pretty pair. Seyfried never rises above big smiles and sad pouts, but Tatum (limited though he may be by ability or script) does occasionally project the genuine sweetness and guarded intensity of a onetime bad boy headed into four-square manhood.

The story line of "Dear John" unravels swiftly, drifting from love at first sight into other emotional shallows, searching for some authentic anchorage in, you know, character, action, closure. The couple don't share screen space for long periods of time, causing the dramatic lights to dim even more. Their pastel prettiness and snapshot-worthy locales dissolve into a Ralph Lauren ad campaign masquerading as a movie. As is usual with Nicholas Sparks, this designer fiction features attractive, upscale locations, from the South Carolina coast, decorated with picturesque summer retreats and stunning sunsets, to a handsome country house and horse farm. It's especially sad to see a subtle director like Lasse Hallström squandered on such an assignment, but props to him for his fine, mitigating eye for landscape and light.

Still, a couple flies must plop into this sweet-smelling ointment; how else to gin up some tsuris and yank some heartstrings? Inconveniently, 9/11 stymies John's plans to leave the Army after his one-year tour of duty. Heartbroken but honorable, Savannah's honey re-ups to stand tall with his buddies. Overseas, he lives for the nonstop flow of mail from the girl back home. Then, out of the blue, comes the titular kiss-off.

Hallström's camera rises above the shattered soldier as he scans whatever heartless words Savannah has written. We're spared his pain, or any logical explanation; in increasingly inaudible voiceover, her words tell us nothing, as if we too must be left shell-shocked and in the dark. But reality has nothing to do with this contretemps, or any other aspect of this movie's low-wattage passion and pathos. We're always at a safe distance from anything like real feeling. Like John's sojourns overseas, perfunctorily staged in some generically dusty, dangerous locale, there's no there there.

With one exception: In his every abbreviated appearance in "Dear John," the admirable Richard Jenkins (an Academy Award nominee last year for "The Visitor") stands out. Playing John's probably autistic father, every part of this lonely soul is physically clenched, literally unable to reach out and connect. It's Jenkins' subtle characterization that tells us the source of both his son's youthful violence and grown-up reticence. Tellingly, Jenkins is out of frame (except for his eloquent hands) for the one truly moving moment "Dear John" delivers.

Following that, seven years seemingly pass overnight, leaving not a single signpost of loss or age on the unmarred landscapes of our lovers' faces. Worse yet, "Dear John" can't seem to say sayonara to this journey with no destination, a narrative that's moved not by authentic tragedy but fakery, in the form of a willfully stupid failure of communication. Deprived of any emotional payoff, we leapfrog through almost-reunion, silly plot switcheroo, selfless gesture, and yet more letters to fetch up at belated meet-cute that takes us back to the sunny start of "Dear John," effectively erasing all the minor irritants in between.

"I write love stories, which are distinct from romance novels," the 44-year-old Sparks insists. "They run the gamut of emotions." Dream on, huckster. You may shill the emotionally anorexic "Dear John" as "an updated version of 'Casablanca'," but only a callow teen or a developmentally arrested adult could imagine any resemblance between this pale and pretty pap and the luminous celebration of high Hollywood glamour and passion in "Casablanca."

Kathleen Murphy currently reviews films for Seattle's Queen Anne News and writes essays on film for Steadycam magazine. A frequent speaker on film, Murphy has contributed numerous essays to magazines (Film Comment, the Village Voice, Film West, Newsweek-Japan), books ("Best American Movie Writing of 1998," "Women and Cinema," "The Myth of the West") and Web sites (Amazon.com, Cinemania.com, Reel.com). Once upon a time, in another life, she wrote speeches for Bill Clinton, Jack Lemmon, Harrison Ford, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Art Garfunkel and Diana Ross.