Nicholas Sparks movies are all the same. This is a widely known fact, so I was not expecting any real variation on his usual love story themes when I saw The Last Song starring Miley Cyrus and her real life boyfriend Liam Hemsworth on opening day. While The Last Song did fit the typical Sparks' plot formula, it was still an enjoyable movie for its category.

Cyrus' character Ronnie Miller falls in with a bad crowd after her parents get divorced and her father moves from New York City to Tybee Island, Georgia. Once a piano prodigy coached by her father, Steve Miller (Greg Kinnear), Ronnie has refused to touch the instrument since the divorce and turns down an acceptance letter from Juilliard. The summer after Ronnie graduates her mother decides that it would be in everyone's best interests if Ronnie and her younger brother Jonah (Bobby Coleman) spent a summer with their father. Steve is obsessively working on a stained glass window piece to replace the one in his childhood church that was destroyed in a recent fire.

Ronnie meets a boy named Will Blakelee (Hemsworth) and initially resists, thinking that he is a shallow womanizer. She eventually falls in love with him when they become involved in trying to save a turtle's nest of eggs, and she finds out that there is more to Will than meets the eye. Their relationship has some serious ups and downs, and they break up when Will leaves Ronnie to go to college in New York.

At the end of the summer, Ronnie stays behind in Tybee Island to be with her father, who we find out has been diagnosed with cancer and will not live very much longer. Ronnie and her father bond through their love of music and she learns to forgive him for her parents' divorce. Ronnie plays the last song her father composed at his funeral and she then gets back together with Will, who transfers schools to be near her while she attends Juilliard.

The Last Song was essentially written as a vehicle to introduce Miley Cyrus as an actress to a more serious audience. She did a decent job in the film, nothing really more than I expected out of her from watching her performance on Hannah Montana. I was very impressed however by her first conversation with her movie father after finding out his diagnosis. Hemsworth, another brand new actor, was chosen for the second lead role. In my opinion, this casting was a mistake as his performance was very wooden. There never seemed to be any emotion behind his eyes when he is spouting lines like, "No one's ever made me feel the way you do, Ronnie."

That being said, the strongest performances in The Last Song were Greg Kinnear and Bobby Coleman. Coleman's first scene after finding out about his movie father's diagnosis and outlook had everyone in the packed theater reduced to tears.

In the order of Nicholas Sparks films that I have seen, The Last Song was better than A Walk To Remember, but not as good as The Notebook. The Last Song makes for an awesome date night movie or something to see with all your girlfriends, just remember to bring a box of tissues.

By Megan Townsend