The Longest Ride is a 2015 American romantic drama film. George Tillman Jr. directed it, and Craig Bolotin wrote the screenplay. The movie is based on a 2013 novel by Nicholas Sparks. It features actors Britt Robertson, Scott Eastwood, Jack Huston, Oona Chaplin, and Alan Alda. The film was released on April 10, 2015, by 20th Century Fox.
Plot
Professional bull rider Luke Collins meets Sophia Danko, an art student at Wake Forest University, after she attends a PBR event. On their way home from their first date, they see a car crash in the woods and help rescue an elderly man from the vehicle, along with a box of letters.
At the hospital, Sophia visits the 91-year-old man, Ira Levinson, who explains the letters were written by him as a teenager to his late wife, Ruth. He asks Sophia to read them, and they tell the story of how Ira and Ruth met and fell in love in 1940.
In stories from the past, Ruth tells a young Ira she wants a large family. Ira later proposes to her before leaving to fight in World War II. However, Ira is injured during an attack and learns he can no longer have children. This causes tension between him and Ruth when he returns. Despite this, they decide to stay together and move in, decorating their home with paintings they both love.
In the present, Ira moves to a nursing home, and Sophia continues to visit him. Luke continues bull riding, and he and Sophia grow closer. They attend an art exhibit together, but Luke finds it uninteresting, and they realize their lives are very different. Luke says he believes their relationship may not work.
Sophia asks Ira for advice, and he shares how he and Ruth made their relationship work. In stories from the past, Ruth, a teacher, becomes close to a student named Daniel McDonald after learning she and Ira cannot have children. They wanted to adopt Daniel, but his relatives refused.
Luke is injured during a ride and taken to the hospital. Doctors tell him he should stop bull riding, but he refuses. After an argument, Luke and Sophia break up. In stories from the past, Ira and Ruth also break up because Ruth cannot imagine a life without children. Weeks later, Ruth returns, saying she cannot live without Ira. Decades later, Ira, now 80, wakes up to find Ruth has died in her sleep.
One night, a woman visits Ira, claiming to be the wife of Daniel McDonald. She tells Ira that Daniel, who became a professor, has died. She gives him a painting of Ruth that he had created, with a message on the back: "Ruth Levinson, third grade teacher. She told me I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up."
Sophia and Luke are told by Ira’s attorney that he has died, and an auction will be held for his collection of paintings. Meanwhile, Luke wins his final ride and the event championship but feels sad because Sophia is not there.
At the auction, Luke buys a painting called "Portrait of Ruth" after no one else bids on it. He and Sophia reconcile with a kiss after Luke says he will stop bull riding because he wants to be with her. The auctioneer reveals that Ira had written a rule: whoever buys Daniel’s portrait will receive the entire collection, worth nearly $200 million, as it was the most meaningful piece to him.
A year later, Luke and Sophia, now married, open an art gallery honoring Ira and Ruth. They visit Black Mountain College, where Ira and Ruth used to celebrate their anniversary. They sit under the same tree and read Ira’s letters together.
Production
In April 2014, Fox 2000 Pictures planned a movie version to be released on April 10, 2015. George Tillman Jr. was going to direct, Craig Bolotin was writing the movie script, and the cast included Britt Robertson as Sophia Danko, Oona Chaplin as Ruth, Scott Eastwood as Luke Collins, Jack Huston as Young Ira, and Alan Alda as old Ira.
Main filming started on June 16, 2014, in Wilmington and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. On July 28, filming moved to Jacksonville, where a major rodeo scene was shot. The PBR helped with the bull riding scenes and was involved in making sure they were accurate. PBR bull riders acted as stand-ins for Scott Eastwood and appeared in the film. The crew later filmed at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem.
Reception
The movie The Longest Ride earned $37,446,117 in North America and $25,498,698 in other countries, totaling $62,944,815 worldwide. During its first weekend in theaters, it made $13,019,686, placing it third at the box office. It came behind Furious 7, which earned $59,585,930, and Home, which earned $18,532,280.
Critics gave the film mostly negative reviews. On the website Rotten Tomatoes, which collects reviews from critics, The Longest Ride has a 31% approval rating based on 124 reviews, with an average score of 4.4 out of 10. The site’s summary states, "The Longest Ride is less manipulative than most Nicholas Sparks films, but it is still overly sweet and feels forced in its storytelling—though this may not affect its intended audience." On Metacritic, which uses a scoring system to compare reviews, the film received a score of 33 out of 100 based on 30 critics, showing that most reviews were unfavorable.
In a CinemaScore survey, where viewers rate movies on a scale from A+ to F, The Longest Ride received an average grade of "A." This is the first Nicholas Sparks film adaptation to earn an "A" since The Notebook in 2004.