The film “Silent Harbor” is significant for most viewers due to the fact that this is an adaptation of the novel by Nicholas Sparks. The writer is the most popular contemporary author of sentimental opuses, on which films are regularly shot. The movie “Diary of Memory”, which glorified Ryan Gosling, is deservedly considered the most successful film adaptation. "Safe haven" put the Swede Lasse Hallstrom. His career in Hollywood began with a successful debut, his author's project “My Dog's Life” received an Oscar nomination. After a successful start, a calm and quiet Scandinavian began to regularly release good dramas with very famous actors. But there are exceptions to the rules, and it became "Quiet Harbor" (2013). The film received skeptical or neutral reviews. At the same time, his IMDb rating: 6.70. An attempt to combine romantic sentimental history and criminal themes in one movie, according to critics, was unsuccessful.
Second chance
In reviews, Quiet Harbor (2013) is positioned by film experts as a sentimental melodrama, although the creators declared the picture as a thriller. Indeed, the beginning of the story does not set the audience in a romantic mood. The main character Katie (Julianne Hough) suffers from the regular beatings of her police husband. Once she decides to escape and arrives in a small port town, hoping to start a new life. And fate gives her a second chance, she meets a decent man - the owner of the store Alex (Josh Duhamel). The recently widowed hero, incredibly sensitive, nice and kind, independently brings up two young children. But the tyrant husband does not intend to just let go of his victim.
According to the familiar pattern
According to reviews, “Silent Harbor” is full of genre cliches to the eyeballs, like a cheap horror movie filled with bu-effects. In the cinema, there are kisses in the rain, and the indecision of the main characters before the first kiss and a touching message to the future darling in the form of a letter from the deceased wife of Alex.
The main actors are not the first magnitude actors, so expecting something supernatural from them would be extremely optimistic. According to reviewers in reviews of the movie “Silent Harbor”, Duhamel and Hough did everything that was required of them, no more, no less. As for the director, it is somewhat surprising why he again turned his attention to melodramas after the triumphant exciting thriller “The Hypnotist”.
Hybrid film
Many authors in reviews and reviews of Quiet Harbor quote Lasse Hallstrom, who called the project a hybrid. The director said that sometimes he makes films, from the creation of which he enjoys. Sometimes engaged in commercial projects, because it is his job. He is inclined to consider “Quiet Harbor” a hybrid, since it is designed for the mass audience, good cash and profit, but it can affect the soul of the viewer.
For most moviegoers, the story of the tape is simple and straightforward. The director did not burden her by a single gram to provoke people looking at the search for meaning. Therefore, few decide to see a picture of cinematic interest.
There are devils in a quiet harbor. Watch out, spoiler!
Most viewers in reviews of Quiet Harbor were outraged by the final twist. The beginning of the story, in which the heroine almost killed an alcoholic husband for self-defense, found shelter in a quiet town and started an affair with a charming widower, does not cause any complaints. The moment when the husband finds the unfortunate and simply forces himself to kill, too. Everything here is explained by the laws of the mixture of thriller and melodrama. But why, in the finale, the heroine’s neighbor, her new friend, turned out to be the ghost of the dead wife of the protagonist, the aforementioned widower? This burning moment is interpreted differently in reviews of Quiet Harbor. Throughout the story, this is the only supernatural moment. It does not in any way combine with the realistic mood of the narrative; it does not add anything to the tape except spectator confusion and subsequent indignation. Perhaps that is why most moviegoers characterize the film as a fairly standard love melodrama, the authors of which unsuccessfully tried to enhance sentimental romance with a bit of mysticism and a grain of sand - which unfortunately burned out.