The Choice is a 2016 American romantic drama film, based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film was directed by Ross Katz and stars Benjamin Walker, Teresa Palmer, Tom Welling, and Alexandra Daddario.
Travis Parker (Walker) is a free-spirited single veterinarian whose bachelorhood becomes deconfirmed upon meeting his new neighbor, Gabby Holland (Palmer), an uptight med student engaged to doctor Ryan (Welling). While Ryan is out of town on business, Travis and Gabby embark upon a whirlwind affair that forces Gabby to choose between the two men. Years later, after Travis and Gabby are married with children, a Surprise Car Crash puts Gabby in a coma, forcing Travis to choose between possibly letting her die or possibly prolonging her life.
Tropes in this film include:
- Amicable Exes: Ryan and Gabby seem to have achieved this. Despite his completely justified anger at Gabby and Travis' affair, by the time of her accident, he's married with children himself, is very compassionate to Travis when he comes to visit, and is just as relieved as him when she awakens.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Travis makes one to Gabby, declaring that he fell in Love at First Sight.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Gabby and Travis' relationship kicks off when she storms over to his house to complain about him playing loud music.
- Catchphrase: "You bother me."
- Creator Thumbprint:
- The setting.
- The beachside frolicking.
- The carnival.
- The home-cooked dinner.
- The rowboat.
- The stargazing.
- The seafood shack.
- The handwritten letter.
- The heroine's family's enormous house.
- The car crash.
- Cuteness Overload: After Gabby's dog delivers her litter of puppies.
- Disposable Fiancé: Poor Ryan. Technically, Travis' on-again/off-again girlfriend too, who conveniently disappears when things pick up with Gabby.
- Empathic Environment: After a huge storm hits, Travis is suddenly struck by the urge to rush to the hospital and see Gabby, and finds that she's finally awakened from her coma.
- Everyone Can See It: Travis's sister knows even before meeting Gabby that he will end up with her.
- Falling-in-Love Montage: Actually happens after they get engaged, in which we see their wedding and them building a life together—pregnancies, childbirth, etc.
- For Want Of A Nail: The car crash that nearly kills Gabby may not have happened if Travis had called or texted her to say he was dealing with a last-minute emergency at the office.
- Forever Fling: Travis and Gabby's affair of a couple of weeks is enough for Gabby to break off her engagement to Kevin and become engaged to Travis very shortly afterward.
- Hollywood Healing: Gabby awakens from her coma as though she's merely awakened from a nap. No pallor despite months without sun exposure. No speech therapy to rebuild throat muscles that would be severely atrophied both from months of disuse and the insertion of a breathing tube. No physical therapy to rebuild limb muscles that would also be atrophied due to months of disuse. No indication of brain damage such as slurred speech or memory loss.
- How We Got Here: The movie starts with Travis visiting a comatose Gabby before flashing back to "7 years earlier" to depict their meeting and courtship.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Monica appears rather unfazed by Travis choosing Gabby over her and even encourages him to pursue her further.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Travis knows full well that Gabby is engaged to Ryan and pursues an affair with her anyway. However, he's right that Gabby made that affair especially easy and let him believe there might be more to it.
- Mistaken for Servant: Travis mistakes Gabby's parents for the chef and the butler.
- Nice to the Waiter: When Travis shows up at Gabby's parents' house, he chats with who he thinks is the chef and the butler. They turn out to be her parents, but his politeness to people he assumed were the help clearly impresses them.
- Sadistic Choice: After the car crash, the titular "choice" shifts to Travis, who must decide between following Gabby's explicit wishes and taking her off life support or keeping her in a coma for an indefinite amount of time. Luckily she awakens before he actually has to choose.
- Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Gabby's a medical student, but we see her studying/in the hospital once. She does however have plenty of time to run around cheating on her fiancé. After she and Travis marry it's not clear if she even bothered to finish school or go into practice, as her studies are never mentioned again.
- Shout-Out: Gabby mentions that her house was owned by a couple who eventually had to go to a nursing home, where they passed away together. Although she never names them, it sounds an awful lot like Noah and Allie, as well as suggesting that the films exist in a Shared Universe.
- Stalking is Love: Travis follows Gabby to her parents' house and basically browbeats her into accepting his proposal. Even worse, her own parents and the servants join him, essentially ganging up on her until she tells him yes. This is despite her explicitly telling him that she needed time alone to think and decide what to do, which he chose to completely disregard.
- Survivor Guilt: Part of the reason Travis is reluctant to let Gabby go is that he feels responsible for her accident—if he'd gotten to the restaurant on time, she wouldn't have left because she got tired of waiting.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Of the "normal" variety. Gabby cheats on her fiancé even though there's absolutely nothing wrong with him or their relationship, and this is supposed to be perfectly okay because she and Travis are the end game.
- Three-Month-Old Newborn: Molly's puppies, despite having been born only a few days before, are indeed, clearly several months old—eyes open, sitting up, etc.
- Uptown Girl: Travis accuses Gabby of this, citing it as the reason that she's dumping him to go back to her fiancé. His argument is actually rather ridiculous, as though while he may not be as wealthy as Gabby or her fiancé, he and his father are both veterinarians and are clearly not struggling financially.
