Marquee Attraction: The Last Song
Release Date: March 31, 2010
Budget: $20 million
Domestic Box Office Gross: $62,950,384
Worldwide Box Office Gross: $89,137,047
Plot Synopsis
Ronnie and her brother Jonah spend the summer on Tybee Island with their father Steve. New Yorkers at heart, the two find different ways to adapt to the southern lifestyle and the pace of the island. Jonah spends his time with his dad learning how to make stained glass windows, while Ronnie makes friends with the locals.
Will, a local beach volleyball champ, becomes very close to Ronnie. They bond over their protection of hatching sea turtles and fall in love. Days and weeks fly by, and Ronnie starts to connect with her dad as well. The divorce was hard on everyone, and it seems as though those tough moments of family history are about to be forgotten.
Tragedy strikes when Ronnie and Jonah learn why Steve wanted the kids to come spend the summer with him. He’s dying of cancer and doesn’t have much time left. Ronnie grows closer to her father, and during his final weeks, we learn that Will has been hiding a secret.
As the fall comes and Ronnie stays behind to care for her dad, the duo learns much about each other, and with some final wisdom, Ronnie learns to grow and move beyond the mistakes that people make.
Standing Ovation
Miley Cyrus is quite good in the role of Ronnie. This is a role that has been done to death, and to be quite honest, the story has been done better in a variety of forms, but the movie doesn’t work if the audience doesn’t connect with Ronnie. Thanks to Cyrus, I liked Ronnie, and genuinely rooted for her throughout the film.
Greg Kinnear is a joy to see on the screen. I loved him at Talk Soup, he held his own against Harrison Ford in Sabrina, (Kinnear is the perfect version of a modern-day William Holden) and he certainly stands toe to toe with Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets. Here he plays the standard dying parent role with a delicateness that is often overlooked. It would be easy to dislike Steve because he left his kids. It’s Kinnear’s work that makes the forgettable part memorable.
Thanks to this movie, I want to go to Tybee Island. It looks incredible.
Greg Kinnear also has one of the best cancer deaths on film. He’s at the final moments, sitting in a chair on his porch with the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the nearby beach, and his daughter finishing the song he started. Just perfect.
Time for the Hook
This is your typical Nicholas Sparks story. Separated families, secrets, and death. They have been done countless times before and are usually all the same.
Bit Part Player
Nick Searcy as Tom Blaklee. Searcy is the guy you see everywhere. He played Deke Slayton in Apollo 13 and was Tom Hanks’ friend whose wife died while Hanks was lost for four years in Castaway. Beyond that, he is in countless roles that never give him the credit he deserves but is essential to the story and always noticeable. He’s even a deputy in the new Netflix show The Perfect Couple.
Did You Know
- Cyrus won a Kids Choice Award for her work in the film.
- Cyrus and Hemsworth also won a Teen Choice Award for their roles in the film.
- The film takes place on Tybee Island in Georgia, but for some reason Will works over two hundred miles away at the Atlanta Aquarium. I doubt he would have done that commute.
- For Hemsworth’s scuba diving scenes, he had to be certified. That makes sense.
- This is the film that started the very public relationship between Hemsworth and Cyrus.
- Greg Kinnear’s daughter was born during the shooting of the movie.
- Hemsworth got the part in the film after losing out on the role of Thor to his older brother.
- Apparently, the church which is so crucial in propelling the narrative of the film, is a prop built for the movie.
- The Last Song is apparently the first film to be set and shot on Tybee Island.
- Nicholas Sparks wrote the part of Ronnie with Miley Cyrus in mind.
- Taylor Lautner was in contention for the role of Will.
- Sparks wrote the screenplay first and then adapted the screenplay into a novel months before the movie was released.
- Filming the turtles as they hatched took over nights to complete the shot.
- Cyrus was still a minor at the time of the filming, so a lot of shots feature a body double for her so that the production did not violate child labor laws.
- The state of Georgia offered a large tax break to have the film shot on location.
- This was Kelly Preston’s first film after the death of her son Jett.
- Hot weather, storms, and jellyfish were just some of the natural elements that the film endured during shooting.
Best Quotable Line
In a letter Steve writes to Ronnie, “Love is fragile. And sometimes we are not always its best caretakers.”
Good advice from a father to a daughter.
Bill’s Hot Take
Miley Cyrus was not appreciated enough for her work in this film. She was great, and very restrained in her work, which made her character more believable.
Casting Call
Miley Cyrus as Ronnie
Liam Hemsworth as Will
Greg Kinnear as Steve Miller
Kelly Preston as Kim
Bobby Coleman as Jonah
Production Team:
Directed by Julie Anne Robinson
Produced by Touchstone Pictures / Offspring Entertainment / Hope Town Entertainment
Written by Nicolas Sparks / Jeff Van Wie
My Critical Response
{Snub-Skip this Film, Lifeboat Award-Desperate for Something to Watch, Commuter Comforter-A Perfect Film for Any Device, Jaw Dropper– You Must Watch This Film on a Big Screen, Awards Darling– This Film is Cinema.}
The Last Song gets my Commuter Comforter award. The film is very much like any other Nicholas Sparks story. There is romance, betrayal, death in some form, and moving on. There is nothing original or new in the movie that would make me say this is ground-breaking.
The movie is beautifully shot, and a wonderful example of why everyone should go visit Tybee Island. Viewers will be comforted by the performances of the lead actors, and if you have time to kill while waiting for your commute on public transportation, then The Last Song is a great choice.
Coming Soon
Next week, a look back at the Norman Jewison/Denzel Washington masterpiece The Hurricane.