Second viewing. Easy to roast Nicholas Sparks for not bringing worthwhile material to the table. Still a dud unfit for network television with ridiculous pretensions of being a real romance for its time: Costner and Wright have zero chemistry, though at least the latter shows mere glimpses (as opposed to the full enchilada, the real thing) of being able to turn in a sympathetic depiction of a real, lovestruck humanoid. Newman is just pathetic as the stock curmudgeon, and given the rankest feces of the dialogue (one of his howlers has him admonishing 'if I were only 150 years younger, young lady' or some shit like that, not joking). MiaB manages to wholly plummet off the rails in the final half hour, ditching Wright altogether more or less, when you'd think it could have been picking up steam or amassing sparks......which should give you more than enough indication of how discombobulated the entire misbegotten affair is. The ballad soundtrack is somewhat interesting, to be fair. Sure beats slogging through the movie it's attached to. 3/10