The screen adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks romance novel -- about a disillusioned divorcee who runs across a half-buried bottle during a jog on the beach, finds an unsigned letter to a Lost Love inside, tracks down its author in a North Carolina coastal town, and applies, in essence, for the vacant position of his adored wife -- comes on as a cynical seducer of what is wishfully labelled the weaker sex, a calculating lounge lizard who expects to make a good impression on, and a good living off, the susceptibilities of women. Only the most monstrous misogynist could imagine that the vast majority of the visualized targets would not just laugh in the lizard's face, or slap it. But the skirt chaser is always simply playing the odds, and suckers will persist in being born every minute. Kevin Costner, Robin Wright Penn, Paul Newman; directed by Luis Mandoki. (1999) — Duncan Shepherd
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