Review of The Notebook (2004) by Jessica E — 04 Oct 2014

With Titanic becoming the most popular film of all time financially for 12 years since its release in 1997, so many romance films after it have copied its doomed forbidden love premise and told stories of it to death.

The worst thing about it is that Titanic wasn't even original to begin with. The Notebook is probably the most popular love story in the post-Titanic era to achieve great success with that premise with audiences and at the box office.

Quite simply put, this film annoys me. Not only is it unoriginal in its storytelling but the entire film is treacle. It's always trying to make you care for the characters and their predicaments and is manipulative as ever in that approach.

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are two good looking and charismatic leads but their characters have absolutely no reason to fall in love. Their first encounter is bafflingly idiotic in how it leads to them becoming an item and when their relationship comes to a halt at one point, so many contrivances take place that try to keep you in suspense as to what will become of them when it's painfully obvious from the outset what will happen.

My dislike coming from this film isn't that I hate romance stories. Many of my favourite films are love stories. But they're all love stories that make sense and don't feel contrived in any way.

The whole film is shamelessly corny and sentimental and not up my alley for sure. However, for Nicholas Sparks, it's shockingly one of his better films.