The Notebook – 2004 – English – Drama – Romance
The Notebook – 2004 – English
Film directed in 2004 by Nick Cassavetes, and starring Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner, Sam Shepard, Gena Rowlands, James Marsden, Kevin Connolly, Joan Allen…
Synopsis: In a nursing home, resident Duke reads a romance story to an old woman who has senile dementia with memory loss.
In the late 1930s, wealthy seventeen year-old Allie Hamilton is spending summer vacation in Seabrook. Local worker Noah Calhoun meets Allie at a carnival and they soon fall in love with each other. One day, Noah brings Allie to an ancient house that he dreams of buying and restoring and they attempt to make love but get interrupted by their friend. Allie’s parents do not approve of their romance since Noah belongs to another social class, and they move to New York with her. Noah writes 365 letters (A Year) to Allie, but her mother Anne Hamilton does not deliver them to her daughter. Three years later, the United States joins the World War II and Noah and his best friend Fin enlist in the army, and Allie works as an army nurse. She meets injured soldier Lon Hammond in the hospital. After the war, they meet each other again going on dates and then, Lon, who is wealthy and …
Review: The Notebook seems to be postcard perfect, a lesson straight out of the director’s guide to romantic movies. Boy meets girl at a carnival, love from the other side of the tracks, a date by the water, etc. And yet the wonderful thing about this movie is that it takes what seems like a story you’ve heard already (at least in bits and pieces) and still moves you deeply. It really speaks about love in a way that most romantic movies miss by speaking in cliché or over shoot by adding in numerous complications to dramatize things. There have been other great movies to comment on love in recent years (Eternal Sunshine, Lost In Translation jump to mind) but this movie fills a need that those other movies miss: the need for a straight, sweep you off your feet romance. Too bad there can’t be movies like this every year…