The Notebook (DVD)

...long suspected this to be the case but there's now irrefutable proof. I didn't cry in "The Notebook" and I didn't love the movie. I mean I didn't hate it, but glancing through other reviews there seems to be nothing but glowing reports of heart wrenching, soul touching weeping over this movie. It's my flatmates favourite movie and that's why we watched it, she had been raving about it for months.

Ill confess to being not ...
...it. Though I watched the movie of A Walk to Remember and wasn't that impressed despite a secret and till now unconfessed admiration for Mandy Moore that even forgives her singing the lines "Your love is as sweet as candy, Ill be forever yours, Love always, Mandy". Any girl that got to date the lovely Zach Braff wins my vote. She gets a bigger vote for breaking up with him and leaving my path clear.

I would say something here ... more

It would seem there is something wrong with me. I'm sure my friends have long suspected this to be the case but there's now irrefutable proof. I didn't cry in "The Notebook" and I didn't love the movie. I mean I didn't hate it, but glancing through other reviews there seems to be nothing but glowing reports of heart wrenching, soul touching weeping over this movie. It's my flatmates favourite movie and that's why we watched it, she had been raving about it for months.

Ill confess to being not much of a crier in general, but there have been times I have been known to cry over a movie. Armageddon gets me every time (No Bruce, don't stay on that asteroid - I love you!), My Life (the movie, not my life as I live it) made me cry and that movie with Jodie Foster and Richard Gere on plantation almost makes me cry just thinking about it. I have also read another book by Nicholas Sparks "A Walk to Remember" and shamelessly bawled over it. Though I watched the movie of A Walk to Remember and wasn't that impressed despite a secret and till now unconfessed admiration for Mandy Moore that even forgives her singing the lines "Your love is as sweet as candy, Ill be forever yours, Love always, Mandy". Any girl that got to date the lovely Zach Braff wins my vote. She gets a bigger vote for breaking up with him and leaving my path clear.

I would say something here like anyway, I digress - but even though I know the meaning of this word it always seems to me to be an argumentative word like disagree. It has an argumentative tone to it in my book. Now I really am off the path.. next I will be telling you words i do like - like tokidoki, which means sometimes in Japanese. What a cute little word.

The Notebook. We start with an elderly gentleman (James Garner) reading a story to a lady of a similar age. The lady is clearly dressed as though she has class and he clearly less so. The lady wears pearls and he wears some ugly jacket. The elderly couple are in a retirement home, not one of the self sufficient homes but one with a nursing staff. The lady has vague twinges as he reads that she has heard this story before but she isn't too sure. We learn she has senile dementia.

The story he reads to her take us to a summer fair in a small town. It tells of Noah (Ryan Gosling) who sees a young lady, Ally (Rachel McAdams) and instantly falls for her. He tries to get her go out with him, and frankly his persistence is a little irritating, and does a few crazy stunts before eventually getting their mutual friends to set them up on a movie date. So he gets the girl, involving an incident of lying in the middle of the road, and they fall in love. But of course there is a problem, the course of true love never did run smooth as the quote goes. Ally is rich and (gasp) Noah is poor, Ally is also to go to college at the end of summer, which is far far from Seabrook where Noah lives. There is an embarrassing moment as Noah meets Ally's family and friends for the first time and they ask him how much he earns and his response is 40 cents an hour.

Class conscious Mum of Ally begins to conspire against the lovers and a family argument, overheard by Noah, has Mum screaming, "he is trash". Realising Ally really is leaving for a better life without him Noah breaks up with Ally. Though there is a lot of yelling from both of them (because that is what this romantic couple do, fight) and I think its Ally who eventually screams "Its Over". Though she isn't sure that it's for real.

Next morning sees Mum packing Ally's bags and her family leaving town, with a quick goodbye to Noah passed through a mutual friend. Noah writes to Ally every day for a year, 365 letters. This dedication also irks me, who DOES that, and does it not smack of freak? Anyway of course Ally doesn't get the letters as Mum of Ally keeps them from her. Noah gives up on the letters and life goes on, but they don't forget each other.

Noah goes off to war and on returning home he rebuilds his dream house, a dilapidated mansion. Now the dream house of course has links to Ally, they slept together for the first time in one of its rooms and Ally and he had talked of their dreams to live there together and how she would like the mansion to be. She wanted it to be white. Guess what colour he paints it? Noah has a new girlfriend but he makes it clear he's not in love with her and that there is another in his heart. Noah doesn't shave and seems slightly nuts, it's the beard of course that is the indicator. Not that this means bearded chaps are nuts, but in the formerly clean cut Noah's case it can be taken as so.

Ally is not so dedicated to Noah. While working as a Nurse in the war she meets the handsome, yet still whipped, Lon (James Marsden). Lon proposes, she loves him and Lon is all that her family wants for her. As Lon proposes Noah's face flashes in front of her, yet she still laughs with delight as she accepts. Mum of Ally is beside herself with joy and approval.

Cut to a bridal store and the usually stylish Ally in an ugly bridal gown. Throughout this movie I had been loving her shoes and her dresses until the wedding gown. Women giggle as they flock around her and Ally is as happy as a woman can only be when she is a bride in a movie and trying on a wedding dress. You know the scene, squealing women and a beaming bride who laughs somewhat crazily. "Is the veil too much?" she asks. Yes Ally, it is. I have been with many friends while they bought their bridal gowns. Though they were of course happy not one of us has ever squealed.

Mum of Ally brings in the newspaper and Ally's wedding to the handsome Lon (not that Ryan Gosling as Noah isn't hot too, I just prefer the darker haired gents) is mentioned as the society wedding of the season. Mum beams with pride. Then the paper folds open and underneath is a story of Noah and his rebuilding of the mansion. Oh oh. How Mum missed this story I have no idea, she was so vigilant with the post and there was a big picture of Noah right underneath the story about Ally and Lon.

Meanwhile while all this has been going back on we have been switching back and forth between the old couple from the start of the movie as he reads the love story to her and they live their lives in the retirement home. There is no explanation of who they are or why they are reading the story. We are supposed to wonder, but honestly you know who they are. Its a little distracting really and I think a little too much attention is focused on the old couple and the dropping of hints as to who they might be.

As with the movie itself I'm going to switch back in time to the triangle of Ally and Noah and Lon. After seeing him in the paper Ally goes to see Noah and discovers that they really do still have that old zing. Lon the fiancé finds out, the Mum finds out, oh what will Ally do. Mum gives Ally the letters that Noah wrote her all those years ago. Lon tells Ally he loves and forgives her and still wants her. I would one day like to ask this (fictional) Ally how she wields such power over men, one loves and pines over her despite not having seen her for years and the other forgives her an affair.

And its here that I will leave off on the story as no one wants to give away an ending, though this movie is hardly known for its suspense and twist plots.

The Notebook is a cute little story that just goes on for a bit too long and perhaps comes with a bit too much sugar. There is nothing wrong with the Notebook, its just not as heart tuggingly romantic as it's painted out to be and I may have shifted in my seat a few times in bored moments. The acting is good, and like almost everyone else I do think Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are gorgeous together and it's nice to know that they have a relationship off screen too. Ryan and Rachel met while filming the Notebook so it would seem that's why they have so much on screen chemistry. They are in Vancouver at the moment and apparently still acting like a cute couple very much in love. There is even a web site dedicated to their relationship, http://hands-clean.net/ryanrachel/.

Ally's mother, played by Anne Hamilton I particularly liked. She played the society mother, who does just want the best for her daughter, to perfection. I hadn't really come across her before but she received a best supporting actress nomination for the Crucible, a movie/book that i quite like, she was also nominated for the same award for Nixon. Sam Shepard is likeably enthusiastic as Noah's father.

The Notebook was Directed by Nick Cassavetes and based on the Novel by Nicholas Sparks.

The soundtrack is typical of what you would expect from a 40's based movie, but it's good and not too intrusive. A bit of Billie Holiday, Glenn Miller and Duke Eillington.

The Notebook was a pretty big movie when it came out in 2004 and so its available at the usual places, like Amazon. Its classified as 15+ (there's a few loves scenes not for the kiddies eyes).

In an interview with the writer he says the story was based on his wifes parents. They met as teenagers and fell in love, they seperated and she got engaged to someone else. She then went back to her teenage love and married him.

Update: Additional Info added
There were no outstanding DVD features. A screen test with Rachel McAdams and some deleted scences. Yawn. The version i watched had English and Spanish subtitles only. This was a region 1 (USA and Canada) DVD.

 

...less