Hallstrom knows his way around heartbreak and domestic frigidity, and his syrup whispering skills come in handy, as Dear John has a tendency to buck wildly when it comes to articulating the strain of a long-distance relationship.

Dear John carefully distills selected elements of human experience and reduces them to a sweet and digestible syrup. It may not be strong medicine, but it delivers an effective, pleasing dose of pure sentiment and vicarious heartache.

I'm fully prepared to hear people write off Dear John as corny, sappy, a movie for chicks. But I'd counter that Hallström's old-fashioned idealism about art and emotion is the more important quality shining through Dear John.

... accomplishes everything you'd expect from an unapologetic "chick flick," but could have worked for the male contingent as well if not for a few unneeded story twists.

Nicholas Sparks writes the equivalent of comfort food, high-carb, low-nutrition, but sometimes it hits the spot.