Safe Haven- PG-13

Running time: 115 min

Director: Lasse Hallström

Stars: Julianne Hough, Josh Duhamel, Cobie Smulders

Finally, a chick flick has hit the big screen for groups of girls to gab about for weeks, Safe Haven. With 17 published novels, this makes this movie Nicholas Sparks’ eighth book made into a feature length film. Director and Academy Award nominee, Lasse Hallström made the well-loved book come to life on the screen.

Julianne Hough portrays Katie Feldman, who runs away from home in search of a clean slate and a new life in the town of Southport, N.C. The movie opens up with her sprinting across the road, crying and disheveled, to a neighbor for help. Throughout the movie the audience is filled in on what caused Katie to flee from her house and what her life used to be through flashbacks. Her demeanor shows her as the timid victim that the audience immediately sympathizes for. Katie is very guarded and keeps to herself, but finds herself befriending her neighbor Jo (Cobie Smudlers).

Katie is not too keen of the idea of Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widower with two kids, courting her. With a little push from Jo and herself Katie and Alex become inseparable. They fall deeply in love, but soon Katie’s past catches up with her and she is forced to choose to stay or go running away again.

Readers beware; the following part of this review is coming from a Safe Haven book reader’s perspective. Many of my fellow book lovers say I believe the movie should be just like the original story; I will pick at every small thing that is different and complain. And almost never does the movie match the book perfectly, and neither does this one. The core of the plot still remains true, while the ending is twisted as well as a few things along the way. All and all the writers Dana Stevens and Leslie Bohem adapt the book very beautifully.

Hough and Duhamel have a chemistry that melts hearts in to small pools of mush, matching the feeling the book gives the reader perfectly. Alex’s daughter, Lexie (Mimi Kirkland) was casted exceptionally and often stole the scene.

So girls, grab your friends and some candy and run to the theaters for a heart-warming, adrenaline pumping romance.