Review of The Notebook (2004) by Ben L — 06 Feb 2017

I must admit I already knew the basic plot outline before watching it, so there were few surprises for me. I wondered the whole time if the end was supposed to be a big twist because it feels like there are so many blatant hints to what is going on. I also don't get some of the things they do in order to maintain the mystery, as if they're trying to hide it from characters in the movie as much as they are from the audience.

Naturally, this is a very sappy and sweet film about true love and looking beyond your differences to be with the one you love. It has an added layer though because it combines a young love story with a story of elderly love. The emotion definitely hit me with the older couple, and I admit I had to blink back a few tears (James Garner crying is tough to make it through, that's for sure.) I wasn't as connected with the young ones, probably because I've seen that same story so many times before.

Gosling and McAdams have some decent chemistry. I appreciated that they had a more realistic relationship with some arguments, and bickering instead of artificial perfection. It was easy to root for them to make it, because you could sense their connection. Poor James Marsden gets another role as stick-in-the-mud, which I feel bad about because I think he has more range than that. And Joan Allen is stuck in one of my least favorite movie character types: disapproving mother.

But as I was alluding to, in my opinion, the strength of the movie is in the scenes with James Garner and Gena Rowlands. The emotion was stronger there, the expressions of love were more powerful, and the heartbreak was harder to take. Sadly, this is the part of the movie that gets less screentime. The movie is effective and will give you the warm fuzzy feeling you want from a good romance film. There were elements that I found a bit stale and derivative, but the themes of love and devotion are timeless.