Screen Scene: “The Last Song”

Miley Cyrus is a thought-provoking actress, in the sense that she provokes such thoughts as: Can a person be called an actress simply by virtue of being in a movie? Shouldn’t a real-life adolescent have a pretty easy time evoking angst? And, maybe most bafflingly, can a person be miscast for a role that was written for her?

That seems unavoidably to be the case with her turn as Veronica “Ronnie” Miller in “The Last Song.” It’s a Nicholas Sparks story like all other Nicholas Sparks stories (he’s the man responsible for “The Notebook” and, just recently, “Dear John”), but this one was written specifically for Cyrus to announce her shedding of the Hannah Montana alter-ego and her emergence as a real, grown-up actress. Sparks appears not to have done his research, though, having written a part not entirely in line with Cyrus’ actual personality, and thus well beyond her range.

Ronnie seems easy enough to play on paper ““ she’s a mopey, rebellious teenager sent, along with her brother (Bobby Coleman), to spend a summer with their divorced father (Greg Kinnear) in a beach town in Georgia. What happens once she gets there is the stuff of Sparks’ authorial reflex: she feels like an outcast, she meets a hunky guy (Liam Hemsworth), she reluctantly falls for his hunkiness, she makes nice with her dad, she encounters all sorts of dramatic complications until the utterly predictable end.

Ronnie is also a classical piano prodigy who’s been offered a spot at Juilliard ““ this, presumably, is how Sparks tailored the part to his star. But Cyrus is a pop-country singer, not a pianist, and the difference is apparently too much for her. In the few scenes that set her before the keys, she looks shamefully out of place.

Sadly, this is true not just for the musical numbers, but for nearly every scene Cyrus is in. She fails to project teen angst with even a fraction of the sincerity that Kristen Stewart has displayed so morosely in the “Twilight” series. When Cyrus’ Ronnie skulks about, it reeks of an over-privileged youngster trying on black despite having nothing at all to be sad about.

Her happier moments ring only slightly truer, though it’s hard to imagine why any of the characters would care to hang around someone so irritating ““ why Will, her hunky guy, finds her even remotely attractive is mind-boggling even by Sparksian standards. “You’re the kindest, sweetest, most beautiful girl in the world,” Ronnie’s dad says to her near the end of “The Last Song,” and you wonder if maybe Greg Kinnear accidentally let slip a line from another script he’d been reading.

But Kinnear deserves the film equivalent of the Purple Heart for his admirable work here, for carrying on like the impeccable actor he is in a film he easily could have slept through. His role is burdened with the worst of Sparks’ melodramatic impulses, but Kinnear refuses to fully exploit his audience’s emotions, and, more impressive yet, refuses to laugh when Cyrus repeatedly botches her most important scenes.

The leading men are strong all around, actually. Coleman gives the film first its comedic uplift, then its emotional center, as Ronnie’s adorable younger brother. “You may be older, but I’m smarter than you,” he says to her at one point ““ he’s a far better actor, too.

And though it would give me much satisfaction to criticize a man with such perfect abs, it must be said that Hemsworth is one hell of a hunk. Almost too much of one, in fact ““ Will is fabulously rich, yet he works at the local aquarium and volunteers as a mechanic, and plays volleyball shirtless in his free time. But Hemsworth tries as hard as he can to play a realistic person, and he comes awfully close to succeeding.

It’s a waste of the male talent, and of a decent-enough script from Sparks, with Cyrus at the helm. Replace her with almost any of Hollywood’s burgeoning actresses ““ Kat Dennings, maybe ““ and “The Last Song” would make a fine guilty pleasure. If only it were that easy.

““ Alex Goodman

E-mail Goodman at [email protected].