Real love, the type that burns inside of you and makes you do crazy things that are sometimes contrary to your nature and it is completely unaffected by the passage of time. Time becomes completely irrelevant where true love is concerned. Two weeks or twenty years make no difference, the feeling is always there and although it may grow less obviously palpable over time, it never fades and never goes away. Dear John is a flick that tries to show us one of these love stories and it doesn't succeed in being as moving and amazing a tale as it should be.

South Carolina-bred Special Forces Sgt. John Tyree (Channing Tatum) falls for affluent college student Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried). As shown in the opening scenes, the two meet when surfing enthusiast John, acting with characteristic gallantry, dives into the drink to retrieve the purse Savannah, acting with not-uncharacteristic vagueness, accidentally dropped off a beachside pier.As John's return to duty looms, the two resolve to maintain their new-found bond by an exchange of detailed -- and always honest -- letters.
 
But then John's plans to leave the Army at the end of his enlistment -- less than a year away -- are suddenly scuttled by 9/11. He uses a brief furlough to visit Savannah, who fumes over the situation, and quarrels with him. They make it up by consummating their attraction in an encounter the film handles discreetly, but also unmistakably endorses. The crisis that follows once John departs again sees Savannah behaving in a way that seems unlikely and inauthentic. On the contrary, the portrayal of John's conflicted filial feelings for his dad -- an isolated figure who devotes all his time and attention to his extensive coin collection, and who eventually suffers a crisis of his own -- is moving. 

While the outside strains on the central relationship in director Lasse Hallstrom's adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' best-selling 2006 novel may be all too realistic -- including as they do the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the characters' reactions to them, at least in a few crucial cases, come across as emotionally inharmonious. Here, Tatum does not fully inhabits this character, and also cannot connect with his audience. The scenes where he is pained are so ineffective that they make you feel forced to share his pain in a way that a lot of young actors struggle to convey. He cannot disappear into a role and become unrecognizable.

Moreover, where Dear John stumbles most is when John and Savannah are sent on their separate ways. John must return to military duty while Savannah goes back to college. Before they say their goodbyes, the two make promises to each other including keeping in contact through letters. The long-distance relationship is less interesting as letters pass back and forth and the narration becomes more and more like something you would find in the e-greeting card section marked "Thinking of You."

When John proclaims to Savannah that "It'll all be over soon and I'll be back for good," he doesn't anticipate something like 9/11 happening. The tragedy affects their plans to be together when John decides to reenlist with the rest of his platoon. From there, Dear John just delays the inevitable as the story becomes more and more melodramatic with each mail call. Hallstrom and Linden play the sympathy card for the final half-hour and unfortunately turn Dear John into an overemotional and manipulative perplexity.