Review of Dear John (2010) by Chads. — 06 Feb 2010

In the best tradition of wartime romances, the woman on the homefront can't commit to celibacy, so she writes a Dear John letter calling it quits with her soldier boy overseas. It's a plot point, in which the moviegoer's sympathy is stacked in the man's favor.

Like with any war film, "Dear John" dramatizes the combat soldier's plight to stay alive. He's fighting for you and me, and her; he's a hero, and deserves to be treated like one.

Obviously, his is the greater sacrifice, since no woman ever died from lack of sex. In such love triangle situations, nobody roots for the other guy(the guy who lets other guys fight in his place), no matter how lonely the woman claims to be.

She's a slut, pure and simple, because we identify with the combat soldier. When John Tyree(Channing Tatum) gets hit by enemy fire, the moviegoer's hates Savannah(Amanda Seyfried) even more; her betrayal is amplified by the soldier's fleeting relationship with the physical world.

To make matters worse, John suspects(and we do, too) that Amanda's new lover is his rival from the beach. "Dear John", however, treats its female character fairly, since John's injury turns out not to be a life-threatening one.

There's no cause for Amanda to well-up with guilty tears. And surprise, surprise, John's replacement is Tim(Henry Thomas), a man with terminal cancer, defusing the moviegoer's inclination to hate Amanda somewhat for her disloyalty.

In fact, "Dear John" quite suddenly puts John in a bad light, because it's in his best interest if Tim died, and get Amanda back. "Dear John" is subversive in this sense: a reunion between John and Amanda constitutes an unhappy ending, unless the moviegoer is heartless enough to root for a cancer patient to perish.