The Shining of Silence

Just one week after the release of "With You by My Side", the next Nicholas Sparks film adaptation is coming to our cinemas with "The Shining of Silence". This time Lasse Hallström, who thanks to wonderful films like "God's Work and the Devil's Contribution", "Chocolat" or most recently "Hachiko" can be considered a professional for great emotional cinema, has tried his hand at one of the author's bestsellers and the result is, as you would expect, a guarantee for tear-filled handkerchiefs.

All young soldier John (Channing Tatum) really wanted to do during his brief home leave was visit his father (Richard Jenkins) in South Carolina. But when he meets the enchanting Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) on the beach, the summer takes an unexpected turn: at first sight, the simple soldier and the wealthy student fall in love. But soon John has to return to his unit. It is supposed to be only a short deployment, which the two lovers want to bridge by writing countless letters to each other. But a tragic event leads to John having to stay on the front lines much longer than planned. And it seems doubtful that the short time John and Savannah had together will be enough for their love to survive this severe test.

No question: "The Shining of Silence" is pure kitsch. Whether it's the campy dialogue, the indulgent landscape shots, the soundtrack - it's all tremendously manipulative, cheesy - and just plain beautiful. Sure, depth looks different and even if the actors, especially the two supporting actors Richard Jenkins and Henry Thomas, once known as Elliot from "E.T.", do a really good job, the characters remain overall rather pale templates that lack the necessary independence. Nor is the story itself really an example of original writing. And yet the whole thing works - provided, of course, they belong to the species of hopeless romantics who are not too shy to sob unrestrainedly even in the face of very thickly applied kitsch.

Then you will succeed very well with this film. Because, as is so often the case with Nicholas Sparks, the rocky road to a happy ending is paved with endless emotional moments that leave a happy outcome for the dream couple in doubt more than once. And that's really what Sparks' stories are all about: the reader/viewer can never really be sure if there will be a happy ending in the classic sense. Anyone who has seen the films based on his novels "Message in a Bottle" or "The Smile of the Stars" will know what is meant.

Starring Amanda Seyfried ("Chloe", "Mamma Mia") and Channing Tatum ("G.I. Joe", "Step Up"), "The Shine of Silence" could succeed in appealing to a fairly broad - but primarily female - audience. In the U.S., at least, the math has worked out, where Hallström's film has risen to become the most successful Nicholas Sparks adaptation to date. While it's far from Hallström's best film and really just a drippy love tearjerker, "The Shine of Silence" can still be warmly recommended to anyone who enjoys sobbing and commiserating with young lovers at the movies.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp