The Notebook

Each February I try to have a post ready for a romantic themed movie and so for this year I have picked one of my wife’s favorite movies.

The Notebook is based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks.  Sparks has written over twenty novels, which from what I can tell mainly focus on the romantic lives of people on either of the Carolina coasts.  I have not read any of his novels (apart from a few pages of The Notebook) but I have seen Dear John, Nights in Rodanthe, and pieces of Message in a Bottle.  

Of these films only The Notebook had any impact on me, though I did like the song “I Could Not Ask For More” from Message in a Bottle.  It is a popular joke among men that their wives and girlfriends make them watch The Notebook as a form of torture.  It is true that it was my wife’s call to go see that film and she certainly shed more tears than I did while watching it but I enjoy a romantic themed film if it the characters and story are intriguing.  As such I found the film pretty absorbing and am happy that it turned into a launching pad for what has become the long careers of Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling.

The Notebook is directed by Nick Cassavetes.  The Cassavetes name has a lot of history in the film industry but the only other Cassavetes film I have seen was most of John Q on a plane.  I thought that film was well intentioned but a little contrived, though as always Denzel Washington was superb (and it has the only performance of James Woods as a nice guy that I can recall).  Nick appeared as an actor in a small role in Face/Off and I have seen his mother Gena Rowlands in many films, often as someone else’s mother.  The soft lighting is accentuated in the cinematography by Robert Fraisse, who rarely worked on this type of film.  Aaron Zigman’s score uses a nice mix of piano and saxophone, evocative of the jazz music that was popular in the era.   

Spoilers below:

Sparks loosely based the novel on the story of his now ex-wife’s grandparents after hearing the story of their lives together,  The story uses a framing device of an older man (James Garner) in a nursing home named Duke in South Carolina reading a story to a woman named Ms. Hamilton (Gena Rowlands) who has dementia.  Duke is patient with her and knows how to keep her attention with the ongoing story which he reads in small pieces.  The story is about a young couple in 1940 on an island off the South Carolina coast. The couple is comprised of Noah who works in a lumberyard, and Allie, a spirited young woman who comes from a wealthy family in Charleston, who is visiting for the summer. They have an intense relationship with a lot of passion (though it is not quite consummated), sometimes arguments, but it is clear they can truly be themselves with each other.  Allie is impetuous, impulsive and naturally talks a lot but she loves to laugh.  Noah is quiet with a lot of people but loyal, a little daring and comfortable in his own skin.  Allie’s mother successfully manages to separate them for about a decade and Allie eventually gets engaged to another good hearted man named Lon who is wealthy.  But Allie sees a picture of Noah in the newspaper after he restores a house to and she goes to see him. 

As the story moved forward it seemed almost too obvious that Duke was actually Noah and Ms. Hamilton was Allie.  There was one major factor that caused me to doubt it.  Garner and Gosling look and speak about as much like each other as Donald Duck and Daffy Duck.  Garner at that time had a very grandfatherly presence onscreen and Duke is pretty verbose, keeping an even tone so Ms. Hamilton would be calm upon hearing the story.  Gosling’s Noah on the other hand is quiet and picks his words carefully.  One of the funniest moments in the film is his wordless shock when Allie appears in his driveway for the first time in several years.  Noah is a good man but he is also pretty blunt and even has the memorable line when he says “I’m not afraid to hurt your feelings.”  Garner would be more believable as the older version of the dark haired Lon who is also even toned and has a more outwardly confident demeanor.

Two actors can play the same part and come up with different interpretations.  For example many actors have played James Bond.  However no one would confuse Daniel Craig’s self loathing assassin with Pierce Brosnan’s playful womanizer and if they were in the same movie it would be a little jarring.  Taken on its own terms though Duke’s dedication to finding a new way to connect to his wife in her current condition is a sign of true love and is consistent with the romantic Noah, who also restored a house in the hope that it might bring Allie back to him.

Gena Rowlands is a more believable match for McAdams.  Rowlands (Cassavettes’ mother) is feisty and restless like the young Allie and her grey hair looks more like the lighter hair McAdams has here.

Gosling and McAdams not only have great chemistry, but their respective crafts were already well developed despite being so young.  McAdams was in the movie Mean Girls prior to this but I never saw it.  As young Allie she often has big emotions and nervously talks to work them out.  She also runs fast several times in the first half as she has more energy than she knows what to do with.  In the second half Allie has grown up more and is a little more contained but McAdams does more with her eyes (note the scene in the bathtub where she is trying to figure out whether to go see Noah),  Notably in the scenes with Lon, McAdams looks pretty happy which helps sell how hard her choice is later.

The scene in the boat is romantic as much for the setting (calm waters with a young couple in a rowboat),  Gosling gives Noah a terrific reaction when the rain comes as Allie tries to stay dry.  Many men, including the gentlemanly Lon, would probably try to help her or show sympathy and Noah just laughs at her since it is raining so hard it is pointless.  The rain leads to lowered defenses as they confront their own emotions and have a pretty realistic sex scene for a PG-13 film.  There is only a touch of nudity but the staging takes it much further than I would have expected and you could be fooled into in thinking you saw the whole act (after Noah undresses Allie the camera mostly stays on their faces as they get into it but the cut to afterwards does not feel like a jump cut).  Interestingly McAdams as Allie shows only ectasy afterwards as they go again and again over the next day or two and we never see any guilt until her mother shows up.

Joan Allen plays Allie’s mother Anne and for the first two acts of the film I was a little surprised at the casting.  Allen specializes in playing complex women and for much of the story Anne is presented as simply the main obstacle to Allie and Noah’s happiness.  Anne disapproves of Noah because of his class, takes Allie away and hides Noah’s letters from her.  When Allie starts seeing Lon Anne looks overjoyed.  However when we learn that Anne had her own “Noah” when she was young and was forced to give him up Allen has a powerful scene in which she exposes her own vulnerability to give her daughter some perspective.  Cassavetes makes the good choice to show the old lover from a distance rather than reveal him just through a story.  This decision makes the old lover feel more real and not giving him a close keeps us from getting to know him although now we are more intrigued.  It does beg the question of why Anne worked so hard to keep Allie away from Noah to only change her mind now.  One thing that is clear is that Anne does not want to tip the scales one way or the other but simply give her daughter the freedom to choose with all the facts.  Besides, Noah now lives in a nice house so while we do not see what he is doing for work he seems to be at least financially stable.

The film works to set up Allie’s decision after this scene and we would have understood if she had stayed with Lon.  One factor that does not add up is that Lon is perfectly happy to stay with Allie even after she has just had an intense affair with her old boyfriend.  Perhaps if she had seen Noah but the filmmakers had saved the bedroom scenes for after she made the decision it might make more sense.  Despite this James Marsden is charming and memorable as Lon, especially in his last scene. 

Both of Allie’s men give her the space to make the choice.   Noah is upfront and admits that if they stay together it will be hard because of their natures but because they are honest with each other they can make it work. 

After Allie chooses to go back to Noah the film stays with the older Noah and Allie as we see them briefly as a couple again when Allie suddenly remembers.  This makes for a bittersweet moment as they have each other again and then when Allie’s memory goes Garner looks as distraught and wounded as I ever saw him onscreen. As romantic as the core idea of the film is (Allie wrote out her story when she first got sick so Noah would read it to her so she would remember) there is one flaw.  If Allie’s memory is that delicate then she would probably struggle to remember the story as it goes, especially if it is told to her in several sittings as it is here.  Within the rules of the film though it works just fine.  

The older Noah is revealed to have a heart condition that he is playing down so he can stay near Allie.  With the last of his strength he comes to Allie’s and the lifetime lovers get the die peacefully in each other’s arms.  I feel for their kids who lost both of their parents at the same time but it is romantic that after so many lost years, Allie and Noah got to spend the rest of their lives together.  Cassavetes wisely finishes the film right at this point and we are spared a teary eyed double funeral. 

As I mentioned before both actors have gone to to do other terrific films, in many genres. It would be interesting to see them reunite in another film sometime though the aftermath of the two year romance they had around the time of this film may prevent that.

The Notebook is a little flawed in its structure but is a moving and memorable romance that I often get caught up in if I am channel surfing and find it on.  ****