The new 'Best of Me' trailer has one goal: to get your eyes watering. It just wants to give you a taste of the buckets you'll probably cry during the actual movie, which looks specifically constructed to tug at your heartstrings so hard that they snap like cheap twine. Yes, this is another movie based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, and like all Nicholas Sparks-based movies, it is in the business of invoking warm, salty tears.

Sparks is the novelist whose work has been adapted into cinematic tearjerkers like 'The Notebook,' 'Message in a Bottle,' 'A Walk to Remember,' 'The Lucky One,' 'The Last Song' and 'Safe Haven.' In the case of 'The Best of Me,' we're being asked to cry over a romance between James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan, two people so absurdly gorgeous that it's a crime against God that they aren't kissing and making babies and so on.

Director Michael Hoffman, who has been making pleasant but forgettable movies for decades, probably knows that a Nicholas Sparks project is easy enough. You put the pretty people on camera and tear them apart through some unfortunate circumstance. There's a template here and everyone seems to be following it to a tee. But, hey, is there anything really wrong with that?

Here's the official synopsis:

Based on the bestselling novel by acclaimed author Nicholas Sparks, 'The Best of Me' tells the story of Dawson and Amanda, two former high school sweethearts who find themselves reunited after 20 years apart, when they return to their small town for the funeral of a beloved friend. Their bittersweet reunion reignites the love they've never forgotten, but soon they discover the forces that drove them apart 20 years ago live on, posing even more serious threats today. Spanning decades, this epic love story captures the enduring power of our first true love, and the wrenching choices we face when confronted with elusive second chances.

'The Best of Me' will open on October 17.

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