With You by My Side

Author Nicholas Sparks is a guarantor for great emotions, Miley Cyrus one for full cinemas. If the popular "Hannah Montana" star now takes her first steps in a Sparks film adaptation in a rather dramatic portrayal, it can actually only result in a full success. And even if "With You by My Side" is not free of clichés and has some length, the work is undoubtedly one of the successful Sparks adaptations, in which not only Miley Cyrus fans should enjoy.

The 17-year-old Ronnie (Cyrus) is since the divorce of her parents not good to speak of her father (Greg Kinnear), whom she blames for the failure of the marriage. That's why Ronnie is less than thrilled to be spending the summer with her dad on the coast with her little brother Jonah (Bobby Coleman). While Jonah clearly enjoys being close to his father, Ronnie never misses an opportunity to rebel and withdraw. When she falls for handsome Will (Liam Hemsworth), the summer seems to take a positive turn after all. But Ronnie has no idea that the next few weeks hold some unpleasant surprises.

"With You by My Side" is a successful blend of family drama and teen romance. While the budding love between Ronnie and Will is especially likely to cause heart palpitations and unrestrained pining among the young female target audience, it is the sensitively drawn, convincingly acted father-daughter relationship that elevates the film above mediocrity. Especially in the last third, both Miley Cyrus and Greg Kinnear deliver very good, heartfelt performances that you wouldn't really have expected after the first, somewhat shallow minutes of the film.

Set to a catchy soundtrack and immersed in beautiful imagery of the Georgia location of Tybee Island, a small resort town with a population of less than 4.000 inhabitants, "With You by My Side" proves to be a beautiful film about first great love, about family and friendship, about growing up and ultimately - as is not uncommon with Nicholas Sparks - about loss. Sure, some of the dialogue is a bit campy and director Julie Anne Robinson doesn't even try to avoid the numerous cliché cliffs of the screenplay, but all this does little harm to the overall picture. Because the film doesn't even try to be more than it is: a nice schmaltzette for teens and young-at-heart romantics. And for them, then: well worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp