The Best of Me

The Best of Me is a romantic drama about Dawson Cole and Amanda Collier, who fell in love as teenagers in a small Louisiana town but were pulled apart before they could build a life together. Years later, both return for the funeral of Tuck Hostetler, the man who once gave them shelter, and the reunion stirs up feelings they never put behind them. Their lives have not turned out as they once imagined, and Tuck has left something behind that asks them to settle certain matters, pushing them to look again at what they meant to each other.

The film is an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks's novel, directed by Michael Hoffman and written by Will Fetters and J. Mills Goodloe. It is the ninth feature in Hoffman's directing career, arriving two years after Gambit and following earlier work such as The Last Station and One Fine Day. Michelle Monaghan and James Marsden play the adult Amanda and Dawson, with Luke Bracey and Liana Liberato as their younger selves and Gerald McRaney as Tuck.

Made for about 26 million dollars, the film took in roughly 39 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.7 out of 10 from around 81,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.5 from a much smaller base of about 2,750. Critics were far less enthusiastic, giving it 3.7 out of 10 across 82 reviews, a wide gap from the warmer audience scores.