Like your mom's special meatloaf, Nicholas Sparks movies are comfort food. Each follows a tried-and-true recipe to achieve the same results every time out, and any variations on the theme are usually met with apprehension and disappointment. Sometimes you're just craving that simple feeling of satisfaction that comes with getting exactly what you expected. Yet while formulas are certainly encouraged in the preparation of food, they're generally frowned upon in the creation of art. But try telling that to the satiated throng who shuffled out of the big-screen adaptation of Sparks' "Dear John," beet-faced and sniffling, one of them secretly blubbering over the fact that she would soon be trying to justify her brazen manipulation by this big, reassuring bowl of clichéd inevitability.

Remember 2004's "The Notebook"? OK, OK; stop crying. I'm sorry I mentioned it. Anyway, that's Nicholas Sparks. He's also the pen behind such weepies as "Message in a Bottle," "A Walk To Remember," and the recent "Nights in Rodanthe." Sparks has made bank trafficking in lovers temporarily star-crossed by such inconveniences as war, the class divide, mental-health issues, terminal illness, and killer bees. (Just kidding about the bees.) The adaptation of "Dear John" is helmed by Swedish filmmaker Lasse Hallström, who sometimes chooses his source material well (like "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" and "The Cider House Rules") but also has a penchant for the overly sweet ("Chocolat"? Yuck). Hallström has always been a reliably decent director, and he is no doubt one of the reasons that "Dear John" transcends its formulaic trappings to push all the right buttons.

Opening in the spring of 2001, "Dear John" stars the dreamy lug Channing Tatum ("G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra") as John, a Special Forces soldier on leave in postcard-perfect South Carolina when he meets a college student named Savannah (Amanda Seyfried, "Mamma Mia!"). He's quiet; she's outgoing. He's got a mystery hellion past; she doesn't drink, smoke, or even swear, but assures him that she's cussing in her mind. An angel on earth, Savannah volunteers by building houses and even likes talking to John's dad (the invaluable Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor"), a reticent coin collector whose habits and mannerisms point to a high-functioning form of autism.

John and Savannah spend two blissful weeks together, regaling each other with promises about their future once he's done with his military service in a year. But then Osama Bin Laden totally screws everything up for them, and the title of "Dear John" becomes clear as the boring middle of the film plays out through a series of letters read in uninvolving voiceover, complete with montages of mailbags and fetishistic shots of handwritten words on a page. The other meaning of the title soon comes to the fore once the expected monkey wrench reveals itself (if there is such as a thing as a predictable twist, this was it) and Savannah writes the requisite letter.

To recap: nothing surprising happened, yet the theater was filled with a bunch of chicks trying to muffle their sobs...including me. Maybe it was because the leads were so attractive, their charming chemistry offset by just a soupçon of hardship. With a face like an extra-terrestrial sex doll, Seyfried nails the smart-hot girl-next-door type, while Tatum has stumbled upon a role suited to his limited gifts, one that doesn't require a whole lot of emoting (or shirts), save for one heartbreaking hospital scene in which he acquits himself nicely. But Tatum is no Ryan Gosling, and so while "Dear John" can't really stand up to "The Notebook," just know that it achieves basically the same results, namely swooning and tears. And swooning.