The Notebookreview by Stefan Ulstein | posted 6/25/2004 12:00AM
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The Notebook
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MPAA rating: PG-13
(for some sexuality)
Theater release:
June 25, 2004
by New Line Cinema
Directed by: Nick Cassavetes
Runtime: 2 hours 1 minutes
Cast: Rachel McAdams (Young Allie Nelson), Ryan Gosling (Young Noah Calhoun), Gena Rowlands (Allie Nelson), James Garner (Noah Calhoun), Joan Allen (Allie's mother)
Related:
Talk About It/Family Corner
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This engaging, intergenerational love story is based on the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote A Walk to Remember. Sparks's novel rests in good hands with this fine adaptation by Jeremy Leven and Jan Sardi. Leven's credits include The Legend of Bagger Vance and Don Juan DeMarco. Like those films, The Notebook retains the same gentle tone, thoughtfully and respectfully developing characters of depth and dignity. Sardi, meanwhile, is best known for Shine!, the delightfully quirky story of an eccentric Australian pianist. She brings the same energy to The Notebook, capturing the unique world of 1940s South Carolina.
Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling as a young Allie and Noah
The Notebook begins with an unlikely romance between a young woman from Southern aristocracy, and a blue-collar boy who works at the mill. Noah provides the spontaneity and joy that is missing from Allie's relentless climb up the social ladder. She's off to a classy college and he's looking at a proscribed life of honest, physical labor. In Allie's vivacity and intelligence Noah finds an intellectual and emotional challenge that is missing in his life. Despite the vast differences in wealth and possibilities, both Noah and Allie live lives stifled and defined by class and convention.
A parallel plot takes place between two elderly residents of a nursing home, where Duke (James Garner) reads a romantic novel to a woman suffering from Alzheimer's. She forgets who he is, and forgets that he has been reading to her every day, but once the narrative begins she starts to remember, or at least feel, her life. At times she has clear, but agonizingly brief moments of memory. The staff and Duke's family feel he is wasting his time, but he finds spiritual meaning in the daily interaction. He expects little more than companionship, and takes solace and pleasure from being with the woman as she struggles to keep her fading humanity.
James Garner in perhaps his finest role
Duke—possibly Garner's finest role—begins as a kindly Southern gentleman, decent and well-mannered. As the story unfolds, we see a man of great spiritual and emotional depth, who at times must face true horror. Gena Rowlands as the old woman is equally engaging. In her we see the longing for a lucid past and the stark terror of losing one's mind and sense of self. Rowlands treats her character with a dignity and honesty that allow us to feel her joy and her terrified confusion.
Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are engaging as Noah and Allie, the star-crossed young lovers, but they are a bit melodramatic. If the movie rested completely in their hands, it might come across as a Southern bodice-ripper, complete with antebellum mansions and mossy trees. We are meant to experience their torrid love affair in retrospect however, and when balanced against the deftly nuanced performances of Garner and Rowlands, the effect is quite touching. The Notebook remains in the memory longer than most of the "feel-good" romances in theaters. Nonetheless, it makes us feel good indeed—good in a deeply thoughtful and spiritual way.
Duke (James Garner) reads to Allie (Gena Rowlands) from the notebook
The Notebook moves graciously back and forth between these two couples, capturing the pacing and flavor of South Carolina as it was experienced by a white couple in the '40s and '50s. It's a sunny movie, full of bright colors, lush lawns, and sparkling bays. Noah and Allie's romance begins after high school and is cut short by her parents' objections and World War II. As the years go by, Noah and Allie continually miss opportunities to connect, and end up settling for other, lesser loves. Allie finds a boy of good family who is handsome, kind, and breathtakingly rich. Noah connects with a lonely war widow with whom he can share his melancholy. A successful carpenter and builder, he pours his love into restoring an antebellum mansion that has captured his imagination since he was a boy.
Sophisticated filmgoers will have little trouble figuring out where all this is going, but the journey is its own reward. Garner and Rowlands give us a portrayal of old people that is neither cheaply sentimental nor cloying. They are fully realized human beings who experience a full range of emotions and desires. They provide a human face to the purgatory of retirement and nursing homes.
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