So What If It’s a ‘Tear-Jerker’?
PG-13 | 2h 3m | Romance | June 25, 2004
“The Notebook.” Rotten Tomatoes critics: 53, audience: 85.
What? Are you kidding me? Few things drive me up a wall these days more than ridiculous Rotten Tomatoes critic/audience opinion-skews, when you can drive a Mack truck between them. Because somebody’s clearly out of touch and missing the point.
Is it the audience? When things hit “critical mass,” and it becomes a clear case of “where there’s smoke there’s fire,” it means a resonating chord has been struck with people, regardless of someone’s film-school knowledge of cinematography and the fashionable knee-jerk labeling of a heartfelt, old-fashioned romance as a “tear-jerker.” Something deep, archetypal, and true has been addressed. The people know what they like; and the critics tie themselves in knots with preconceived notions.
‘The Notebook’
I saw “The Notebook” back when it debuted in 2004. I remembering liking quite it a lot. Watching it recently, I forgot how much. “The Notebook” is a thoroughly old-fashioned romantic melodrama, charting the obstacles placed in the path of two star-crossed young lovers from opposite sides of the have/have-not tracks.
In the summer of 1940, Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) and Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams) first meet at a carnival in his North Carolina hometown. Seeing her in a bumper-car, it’s love at first sight for not-shy Noah, who then basically does a swan-dive into the middle of Allie’s Ferris wheel car, before it rotates skywards, landing between her and her stunned and exasperated date.
Hanging by one hand, 200 feet in the sky, Noah makes a humorous, blackmail-by-death-fall, coercive date request. Allie screams her acquiescence in terror, but then evens the score by yanking Noah’s trousers to his ankles, leaving his boxer shorts flapping in the breeze, to the delight of carnival-goers everywhere. Is this not excellent chemistry?
But Noah works at the local lumberyard, and Allie, ever busy with piano lessons and applying to Ivy League colleges, is summering in a local mansion with her wealthy family. Which means it’s gonna be a true love versus some-guy-with-money tale.
It’s a fairy tale, whirlwind romance. When Allie first visits Noah at home, he’s reading Walt Whitman’s poetry on the porch to his dad Frank (Sam Shepard). Frank is deeply impressed with the beauty of his son’s date. Getting a tad competitive, to Noah’s mortification, dad informs Allie that they’d managed to get rid of Noah’s childhood stuttering with poetry reading. Then he invites her in for some breakfast pancakes, at 10:00 at night.
There’s much jumping in the local swimming hole, boating on swan-populated rivers; Allie shares her deep love of painting watercolors, which Noah takes note of, for purposes of later wooing.
However, Allie’s parents bred her for the good things in life, and after observing her summer romance heat up into the danger zone, her haughty, hard-faced, and manipulative mother (Joan Allen shines in the role) warns and eventually forbids her daughter to continue spending time with poor Noah, whom she labels “trash.” Allie’s shipped off to college in New York, her parents hoping she’ll soon forget about puppy love and mature into valuing money, position, and power.
War
Meanwhile, heartbroken Noah patriotically enlists in the army, serving under General Patton in Europe, and losing his best buddy Fin (Kevin Connolly) to a mortar attack.
Also feeling the effects of the war, Allie volunteers as a nurse at an Army hospital. There she meets a young soldier named Lonnie, bandaged from head to toe, who asks her on a date.
Once out of his bandages, Lonnie turns out to be a serious heartthrob of a Southern gentleman, who comes from money—and a stockbroker into the bargain. Allie’s soon out on the town, enjoying the finer things in life: nightclubs featuring Cab Calloway, dancing, and champagne. Naturally, Allie’s soon got an expensive diamond engagement ring on her pretty finger.
Noah, eventually returning Stateside to his rural hometown, purchases and restores the decrepit mansion that was the site of his last night with Allie, that he’d told her he’d buy and fix up just for her. He obsessively channels all his love for Allie into this home renovation labor of love, becoming a bit of a local eccentric, and running off potential buyers who try to lowball him on buying his masterpiece, with a shotgun.
Noah’s laudable feat of handiwork is written up in the local paper. Allie’s mom happens to hand her that very same newspaper, to read a different article, as Allie’s standing there in her wedding dress at her bridal shower. Allie turns the page … and faints. There are no coincidences!
Performances
Rachel McAdams is wonderful as the spirited and effervescent young Allie. Ryan Gosling made his romantic lead debut here as the younger Noah, with a determined-yet-laidback charm; and the two of them were and are so convincing, they convinced each other right out of the movie and landed in a two-year off-screen romance.
While not as visceral and electrifying as those two, James Garner and Gena Rowlands, playing the elder Noah and Allie, invest their roles with great dignity, and have a chemistry as sweet as honey.
Director Nick Cassavetes, son of John Cassavetes (and also son of Gena Rowlands) handily captures the atmosphere of the 1930’s and ’40’s American South, and clearly nailed the main job of directors, which is perfect, chemistry-generating casting.
Is “The Notebook” a “tear-jerker?” It’ll make you cry, but it’s not manipulative. Heartbreak will make you cry, you know? So will two elderly people who once had a blazing romance, and now one has lost their memory to senile dementia. Is it a “chick flick?” It’s just an inspiring love story that will touch your heart and make you believe that true love can last a lifetime and conquer all.
‘The Notebook’
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner, Gena Rowlands, Sam Shepard, Kevin Connelly
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hour, 3 minutes
Release Date: June 25, 2004
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
