Making a choice

Sam Morad

Anticipating the next Nicholas Sparks novel is something most of us have felt at one time or another in our lives. Nicholas Sparks is an award-winning, famous author known all around the country as the man with the ability to break girls’ hearts every time they read one of his books.

Heart wrenching, gripping, thrilling love stories are Spark’s specialty, never failing to leave his readers in tears, questioning everything they have ever thought about love. Writing novels such as The Last Song, The Longest Ride, and most famously, The Notebook, many of his well-written novels have been turned into multi-million dollar movies that draw in crowds from all over the world.

The most recent movie in the Spark’s collection is based on his 2007 novel, The Choice. The plot centers around a man named Travis (played by Benjamin Walker in the movie), a lonely middle aged man living in North Carolina who focuses on his career, his friends, and not much else. Sitting in his chair by the water, he has never fallen in love, and doesn’t think he ever wants to.

Meeting his next door neighbor, Gabby (played by Teresa Palmer), for the first time after a party when she argues with him about his loud music and her pregnant dog, Travis immediately new that his life is changed forever, and that his perception of love and lust would be flipped. Dealing with loss, self-discovery, and the pursuit of happiness, Travis and Gabby both have to make choices and decisions that would shape the rest of their lives.

The Choice did an excellent job at recreating the main points of the novel. After being an avid Nicholas Sparks fan for years, I take pride in sitting through the movies and nitpicking every falsified or inaccurate aspects of the plotline that are different than they are written in the book, as well as do most of his fans. Although that is usually the case, I was pleasantly surprised by the accuracy and correlation between the film and the novel that inspired it.

Director Ross Katz spent time with Nicholas Sparks to make sure the movie was as close to the novel as it could fit into a 1hr 51min time slot. The characters were developed early on in the movie, each one displaying their own unique style and personality right off the bat, as to let the viewers form their own opinions on who they like and dislike, an element Spark’s includes in all of his novels. The main characters were easy to connect with and likeable, and the on-screen chemistry between the two characters Travis and Gabby made for a spot-on representation of their relationship from the novel.

The beautiful and laid back feel of  the North Carolina location really set the scene and matched the descriptions from the novel, and Travis’ quaint house on the water really reflected his personality, which was a big part of the novel. The house and setting served as a symbol for Travis’ style of living, and the fact that he enjoyed living alone and bringing women home whenever he pleased.

Each element of the movie, from the typical North Carolina clothes, to the small open-aired houses, added to the realism of it and how closely it related to the novel. I was shocked at how accurate each scene was, and how easily and effortlessly the movie explained and showed the plot and overall message of the novel that it took Spark’s hundreds of pages to reveal. Always ready for the next movie, fans are already questioning which book will be next to be created into a film, and when Sparks will write another masterpiece.