Dear John

In Lasse Hallström’s film the war fits inside an hour’s drive of Charleston. The bombed Afghan village where a sniper hits John is the half demolished Lafarge cement plant at Harleyville, the German hospital is the Citadel military college infirmary, and the pier he dives from for Savannah’s purse is the Isle of Palms fishing pier. The tight map keeps the front line small in scale. The September 11 moment is sound, not footage: outside Randolph Hall at the College of Charleston, phones begin ringing one after another. The engine is the father’s coin collection, not the letters. When Savannah suggests his father “may be autistic like Alan,” John leaves the table. That collection later pays, anonymously, for his rival Tim’s cancer treatment, so the father strand closes harder than the romance. The theatrical ending departs from Nicholas Sparks’s novel. Relativity Media executives overruled Hallström and producers Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, ordering hurried new scenes three weeks before the February 5, 2010 release; market research settled it. The film opened at number one on 30.5 million dollars, ending Avatar’s seven weekend run. A good fit if you can accept that the last ten minutes break from the tone before them and were bolted on late. Not for anyone waiting on the separation ending of the novel, which was cut.