Film Corner

[Content Note: Stalking; domestic violence; rape culture; misogyny; barf talk.]

I'm sure there are people reading this post who love Nicholas Sparks, because he is very popular! He has written somewhere between five and a million novels, which some people find to be super romantic and other people find to be super barfy and there is very little middle ground between the romance and barf camps, and each of those five-to-one-million romance/barf novels have sold fully 30 trillion copies apiece and they have all been made into films starring famous attractive white people, each of which has made like 100 nonillion dollars at the box office (like I said, he's very popular), and now here's another one!

It's called Safe Haven, and if you are one of the people who love Nicolas Sparks, or his books, or the movies they've made of his books, you are probably very happy! Yay for you! Even though I do not share your joy because I hate Nicolas Sparks SO MUCH (Team Barf), please know that I am glad you're happy and that I don't judge anyone for liking Nicholas Sparks because literature and film and the stories we like are very subjective things, and even if it could be objectively determined that his stories are terrible, I like lots of things that are pretty widely regarded as garbage myself, so TO EACH HIR OWN, I say! (I definitely said that first, right? Probably.)

Anyway! To the video clip! And my accompanying paraphrase/commentary! At least one of which will be enjoyable for you whether you are roasting marshmallows at Team Romance or using the buddy system to visit the outhouse at Team Barf!


The sound of seagulls. Obviously. Because Nichols Sparks:seagulls::Michael Bay:sparks.

(Cinema-heads might argue that John Woo's doves are the more obvious parallel, but they would be wrong because John Woo is cool and that renders him ineligible for any comparisons to Nicholas Sparks.)

Text Onscreen: Message in a Bottle A Walk to Remember The Notebook Nights in Rodanthe Dear John The Last Song The Lucky One Safe Haven.

Sirens. Feet running down an alley. It's a young thin white woman, being played by the future Mrs. Ryan Seacrest, Julianne Hough. She is wearing a hoodie and looking frightened. ACTING!

Cut to a slightly older (?) thin white man, being played by someone I don't recognize and who cares, who is slamming the picture of Lady Seacrest against some glass like he's a cop (I think he's a cop) and demanding to know if the man behind the glass has seen this woman. The man says he doesn't think so, but somehow Officer Jerkbag catches up to a bus she's just gotten on IN THE RAIN and says, "STOP THIS BUS! I AM OFFICER RICHARD JERKBAG, MEANBERG P.D.!" or whatever, but the driver is all fuck da police and drives away.

Lady Seacrest heads straight to Sparksville, North Carolina, where the sun in shining and Cobie Smulders is waiting to be her new BFF. Music. Sepia memories of a time when she was being hurt by Officer Jerkbag in Meanberg, and had long brown hair instead of the stylish blond bob she has now. Sexy disguises aren't just for Halloween, ladies.

Lady Seacrest meets Josh Duhamel, the current Mr. Fergie Blackeyedpeas, who works at a shop, but is probably an architect of lovely things in his spare time. He's all, "Usually people just pass through this shithole," and she's all, "I like it here, and I hope you can tell by my demeanor that I am lady-damaged in that perfect way where I am mistrustful but am totally open to being hella rescued from my dark past by just the right handsome widower who is definitely ready to love again." And he's all, "Ten-four, blondie."

And then he builds her a bike, which is a gift she CANNOT ACCEPT. Until she sees that he has a daughter, and then she's like, "Ohhhhh he's definitely not a rapist or in any other way dangerous!" because as we all know, men with daughters never hurt them, but carefully protect them from harm like the delicate orchids that they are.

FUCKING GOD I HATE NICHOLAS SPARKS SO MUCH.

If I make him a gold, jewel-encrusted crown and anoint him King of the Kyriarchy, will he finally feel like he's achieved his goal and go the fuck away? Because obviously MORE MONEY THAN THE SULTAN OF BRUNEI isn't convincing him that he can TAKE A NAP!

Anyway. Lady Seacrest finds out that Duke Fergie is a widower with two perfect white children, one boy and one girl, and so she goes to visit him to say, and this is not made-up dialogue: "Okay, maybe I overreacted." HA HA PERFECT. The best thing about Nicholas Sparks stories, AND I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN ONE IN ITS ENTIRETY, is how the women are always misunderstanding something about the men, making them suspicious of the dudes for a totally logical reason, but then BOOM! They were all wrong and have to APOLOGIZE for behaving like women who live in a goddamn rape culture and not immediately trusting every handsome white man to be the perfect gentlemen they definitely all are. And the men then MAGNANIMOUSLY accept the apology, because women are silly and usually somehow broken by OTHER MEN (who they shouldn't have trusted?) and they just need a good white man to fix them. UGH. THE BARF. SO MUCH BARF.

Nicholas Sparks is a rape culture apologist! He writes stories about how women need to apologize for not trusting men! He writes stories that urge women to undermine their own good instincts and treat straight white handsome men like the benevolent saviors his stories suggest that they axiomatically are! IT IS SO GROSS! HE IS A PEDDLER OF PRACTICED SELF-DOUBT DISGUISED AS ROMANCE! ACK!

Anyway. Canoeing. Running and laughing in a rainstorm. Sexy beachtimes. Making out. Falling in love. UH-OH! LOOK WHO'S HERE! It's Officer Jerkbag! NOOOOOO! And as everything starts to FALL APART in montagery, I shit you not, the text onscreen reads: "It's not what you're running FROM... It's what you're running TO."

Sirens. "He's gonna find me!" Running. Fireworks. Worried faces. ACTING! Fire! Swimming! Love. "There's no safer place for you than here with me." Actual fucking dialogue from this goddamned trailer. Because the only thing any woman running from a determined domestic abuser who is a POLICE OFFICER needs is the love of a good man with a strong streak of chivalrous paternalism. VAWA SCHMAWA.

Coming in February to a barfatorium near you.