Stacy Lambe | October 15, 2014 8:00 am

Opening this weekend is yet another adaptation of one of Nicholas Sparks’ romantic novels, The Best of Me, starring James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan. This makes the ninth Sparks novel to find its way to the big screen with another one (The Longest Ride) coming in April. Since 1999, when his first adaptation appeared in theaters, there have been countless Sparks-like tales to flood theaters. Films, such as The Vow and Remember Me, play on many of the author’s most standard tropes that its hard to know whether or not you’re watching an authentic “Nicholas Sparks Film” (NSF).

Here at VH1 we broke it down question by question to help you through you’re next romantic-drama viewing experience.

The Cast

1) Does the film star James Marsden? (No pressure. There’s only a 22 percent chance here.)
2) Does the film’s leading man work with his hands? You know, like a carpenter, or boat repairman, or a fixer-high-er? In this case, a surgeon counts — he technically works with his hands to stitch someone back together.
3) Is the leading man substantial without being overbearingly so (like Brad Pitt) or too rugged (like Mark Wahlberg)? Is he generally more likable than Ben Affleck? Is he just the right kind of masculine that’s not too hard or too soft but rather somewhere in the middle, like someone your mom would adore on the cover of People magazine?
4) Is the female lead a casual gal who is pretty without trying too hard with hair that looks good blowing in the murky wind?
5) Does she a job — not a career?
6) Is either lead characters guided by an entrusted sage who guides one of them on the path of like? This is typically a release parent or grandparent but someone older, wiser, and will probably die alone (off screen).
7) Does anyone have cancer?

The Setting

8) Does the film take place in the Carolinas?
9) Is the film’s main location set near a large body of water — say, an ocean, a large lake, or an expansive river, but really an ocean with waves crashing idealistically against the beach?
10) How’s the ride out? Did a idealistically exciting rainstorm blow through town leading to some form of a romantic run into, namely kissing?
11) Was there any rain-soaked kissing involving Ryan Gosling or Rachel McAdams?

The Plot

12) Does class break the main characters?
13) Is the path to like bent and fraught with twists and turns and circumstances that seemingly find a way to keep the couple apart from each additional?
14) Did someone leave putting an incredible distance between that person and his/her potential lover?
15) Is there a particular focus on prose like letters?
16) Was there a night of passion — not gratuitous, orgasmic sex but right passion — between the film’s main couple?
17) Was there an unbearable loss, in particular a father, a child, a husband, and/or but not limited to an ex-husband?
18) Did James Marsden get the shaft?
19) Seriously?!
20) Did he/she just die?
21) SERIOUSLY?!?!
22) Did you hideous girl weep — like really lose your shit and sob uncontrollably making the people around you uncomfortable?

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, there’s 75 percent chance (note: this number is not based on any methodical evaluation) that you’re watching an authentic NSF. The key identifiers of NSFs are in the report itself:

Often these films take place in the South (The Lucky One), often one of the Carolinas (Dear John), and next to the ocean (Message in a Pot) — how else are you supposed to let your hair blow in the murky wind? — with an outsider moving into the small town leaving behind a wake of uncertainty (Safe Place of protection) and raising the suspicious of a disapproving parent (The Last Song) but have no dread, the sage (aka lonely, release parent dining for one), is there to help one of the lovers on the right path, which typically involves prose like letters (Dear John), kissing the rain (The Notebook), overcoming classism, a moment of passion, and the dramatic twist — a twist that wrenches the heart (A Walk to Remember), turns on the waterworks, and for some means that like doesn’t always mean a picture-perfect ending (The Best of Me).

(Click through the gallery above to appreciate all the similarities in an authentic NSF.)

If you answered “no” to any of the questions above, there’s still a 75 percent chance you’re watching an authentic NSF or that you mistakenly plotting you were watching a NSF when in actuality you are watching a NNSF (“Not Nicholas Sparks Film”). Some of these films blur the lines of NSF tropes, such as letter prose (The Lake Household, P.S. I Like You) and disapproving parents (Endless Like). Films, like Remember Me and The Vow, inexplicably feel like NSFs while The Spectacular Now has a tinge of A Walk to Remember sprinkled into its premise.

[Photo: Getty, New Line Cinema, Relativity Media, Warner Bros.]

Tags: The Notebook, The Best of Me, The Lucky One