This past weekend, a few of my friends and I had a girl's night at the new movie theater in Oxford. We headed in with our VS hoodies, mini wine bottles, and tissues in tow to watch the much anticipated Nicholas Spark's movie "The Choice."
I am not a big fan of romance movies, much less the novels they came from, so you could assume I was not as anxious to see what the film producers did with the story. Some of the past Sparks films have been attacked for the extreme plot changes that do not coincide with the book (ie: "The Last Song" and "Dear John").
My friends seemed to be extremely pleased with how the movie played out.
The plot was a typical "Boy meets girl, boy and girl hate each other, boy and girl end up together in the end" kind of plot. Gabby had her life together as a med student, in love with a doctor, and on the cusp of brilliance. Travis was a loud, exciting playboy by night who saved animals' lives by day. They fall in love, get married, have a few kids, and continue a lifetime of happiness until Travis made a choice.
One stormy, rainy night, Travis and Gabby planned a date night. Gabby made it to the restaurant on time for the reservation and waited around for her husband. Travis was already running late, then last minute took a patient instead of turning them away to go be with his wife. Gabby grows impatient and leaves the restaurant upset. As Travis is on his way there, Gabby gets in a wreck and is left in a coma.
On top of that choice that weighs him down with guilt every day, he now has to choose whether or not to pull the plug on the love of his life. He never finds himself to be ready for it, and much to his (and my) surprise, she comes back before he agrees to euthanize her. This isn't very normal for Nicholas Sparks. These tales tend to be heart-wrenching and tragic.
Regardless of the romance and love that is the epicenter of the film, I found the film to be inspiring, and not for the typical reason. The film is called "The Choice" for a reason.
We are faced with choices every day of our lives, and taking the other option at a crossroads changes your entire story. We can beat ourselves up over the things we did or did not do, but that gets in the way of the decisions ahead of us.
Maybe we will get lucky and have our mistakes come back to give us a do over, and there's always a chance that those mistakes will strongly affect us to the point of no return. But hey, we'd have nothing to learn without them.
