The Choice (2016 film)

Plot

Travis Shaw (Benjamin Walker) is a veterinarian, living in the city of Wilmington, NC, who falls in love on his first meeting with Gabby Holland (Teresa Palmer), who has moved into the house next door. Gabby is a medical student who is in a relationship with a fellow doctor, Ryan McCarthy (Tom Welling). With Ryan out of state overseeing a new hospital opening, Gabby and Travis spend more time together, starting a relationship.

Ryan returns, and is keen to resume his relationship with Gabby. Unsure of her feelings, Gabby tells Travis that their relationship wasn't necessarily serious, so she says Yes to Ryan's marriage proposal. Monica (Alexandra Daddario) breaks up with Travis telling him she knows about him and Gabby, and that he should fight for her because they love each other. Travis goes to the hospital, only to find out Gabby left after she broke off her engagement with Ryan. Ryan punches him for the affair. Travis then goes to Gabby's family home to propose to her. After convincing her of his love, she says yes. They marry and over the course of the next few years they have two children and become a happy family.

One evening, after a dinner to which Travis has failed to show due to a work emergency, Gabby drives back home but is involved in an accident with another car. She survives but is now in a coma, which seems permanent. Travis, wracked with guilt, has to decide whether to take her off life support or not.

After a storm nearly destroys their house, Travis finds the wind chimes that Gabby had on her porch. Travis goes to his island and builds a gazebo and hangs the wind chimes there. The shell chime starts to ring in the wind and Travis runs to the hospital where Gabby has woken up from her coma. He takes her home where she is welcomed by the family and Travis' sister's newborn child. To make up for missing their dinner date they have one in the front yard, where she tells him she heard everything he said whilst in the coma. The last shot is of Travis and Gabby with their children and dogs sitting in the gazebo called Gabby's Point, looking out onto the shore and up at the stars.

Cast

Production

On June 10, 2014, Lionsgate acquired the American and United Kingdom rights to make a film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' 2007 novel The Choice. Bryan Sipe wrote the script for the film, which Sparks, Theresa Park and Peter Safran produced. On September 2, Ross Katz was set to direct the film, which Sparks co-financed and -produced with his Nicholas Sparks Productions, along with Safran's The Safran Company. On September 30, Benjamin Walker was cast to play the lead role in the film, Travis Parker. On the same day, Teresa Palmer was cast as the female lead, Gabby Holland. On October 7, Tom Wilkinson was added to the cast to play Dr. Shep. On October 8, Alexandra Daddario, Tom Welling, and Maggie Grace joined the film. Welling plays Ryan, a doctor at his father's practice who is Gabby's boyfriend, and Grace plays Travis' sister, Stephanie.

Filming

Principal photography on the film began on October 13, 2014, in Wilmington, North Carolina, and lasted through November 21. For the first three days, the crew and extras filmed at the Dockside Restaurant & Bar and Bridge Tender Marina along with actors, near Wrightsville Beach. On October 20, filming was taking place at Hanover Seaside Club in Wrightsville Beach. The production later moved to downtown Wilmington, where filming took place in a house.

Box office

The Choice grossed $18,730,891 in North America and $4,689,987 in other territories for a worldwide total of $23,420,878.

The film was released in North America on February 5, 2016, alongside Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Hail, Caesar!. The film was projected to gross $7–9 million from 2,631 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $290,000 from Thursday night previews and $6,050,443 in its opening weekend, finishing fifth at the box office behind Kung Fu Panda 3 ($21,242,181), Hail, Caesar! ($11,355,225), Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($6,973,316) and The Revenant ($6,939,795).

Critical reception

The Choice received negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 12%, based on 73 reviews, with an average rating of 3.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Like the 10 Nicholas Sparks movies before it, The Choice finds tragedy striking star-crossed lovers in the sun-dappled South – yet even for those who loved its predecessors, this gauzy melodrama may feel painfully formulaic." Metacritic reports a score of 26 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Frank Schenk of the Hollywood Reporter criticized the film as being "the cinematic equivalent of staring at a Hallmark Card for two hours." A. A. Dowd of the A.V. Club called it "a formulaic mush". Moira Macdonald of the Seattle Times wrote the film "moves inexorably to its inevitable tear-jerky end." Andrew Barker of Variety describes the film as "beginning as a merely mediocre retread of standard Sparksian tropes, veering off into self-parody around the hour-mark, and finally concluding with one of the most brazenly cynical climaxes recently committed to film." Devan Coggan of Entertainment Weekly concluded that the film was a "predictable, recycled mess."

Home media

The Choice was released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 3, 2016. The movie was released for inclusion in Amazon Prime membership in 2017.