Films based on novels by Nicholas Sparks have a certain formula: Throw in an attractive, popular male lead. Write some semicorny dialogue. Assault the tear ducts of the audience members with an array of heart-wrenching scenes, one after the other. It may seem like a little much, and yet this is the package that hooks the audience. And, judging by the hordes of tittering girls packing the theater at the promotional screening for the newest Sparks film, Dear John, it works.

Dear John is no different from the other movies based on Sparks’ books. Channing Tatum, who plays bad-boy-turned-soldier John Tyree, is another lead in a line of Sparks-movie heartthrobs, following Shane West in A Walk to Remember and Ryan Gosling in The Notebook. Note that Tatum is shirtless within the first three or so minutes of the film. Amanda Seyfried plays Savannah, the somewhat coy, always compassionate conservative college girl he falls for. And so they present us with the perfect ingredients for the sap-cakes of movies many have come to love.

The premise is pretty basic, and the beginning of their relationship is one of fairly simple components. The two meet on the beach after he rescues her purse from the water. She invites him back to her family barbecue. The autistic son of her neighbor actually says hello to him, and she’s surprised and suddenly gaga that his presence could have that effect on the usually quiet child. In turn, she makes his socially unskilled father (played by the talented Richard Jenkins) open up within a few minutes of meeting him, even though John insists she won’t be able to.

Aw.

After the night of the barbecue, they go on a date, and BAM, they’re in love. She decides, after two weeks together, that she’ll wait an entire year for him to come back from his deployment. After he leaves, their communication consists only of letters back and forth – hence the title.

In this sense, the audience becomes invested in the success of their relationship, especially those who are aware of what it’s like to endure long distance. The film stays suspended in this dreamy waiting-world, and everyone collectively holds their breath for when he’ll finally come back to her.

While discussing the plot further would reveal the many twists that come, one of the problems in the film is just that. Many of the characters and situations are set up just perfectly so that the ensuing “tragedies” can occur. Though Sparks’ plot structure can affect the simplest of viewers, those with a little more desire for realism will blanch at the somewhat contrived situations. The amount of heartbreaking calamities that are jam-packed into his stories may draw tears, but they certainly don’t call up a sense of reality or restraint. It’s as if he kept journals full of different tragic occurrences and said “To hell with it, these are all going into Dear John.”

Tragedy aside, though, it’s pretty obvious that Dear John will appeal to its intended audience and maybe even reach further. It’s not a complicated work, but it is enough to please those hoping to witness a good romantic tear-jerker.

C+

Reach reporter Kristen Steenbeeke at weekender@dailyuw.com.