I confess to harbouring considerable dread when entering the theatre to check out Nick Cassevettes’ The Notebook. This movie’s trailers, which played up the saccharine soap opera elements of the love story, held no appeal for this particularly crusty reviewer. That the film turns out to be something better than completely horrible is a pleasant surprise.
The Notebook is told in flashback, as an aged James Garner reads a book to the Alzheimer’s-riddled Gena Rowlands in a picturesque little nursing home. This framing device is a bit problematic, because even though it provides the film with a grander scope, it saps the film of drama and suspense, telegraphing how everything will play out. Set in the glorious Carolinas and spanning several decades in the mid to late 20th century, The Notebook is the sort of tale that Harlequin would have set a century earlier and happily labelled a bodice-ripper. A pair of star-crossed lovers, Allie (Rachel McAdams) and Noah (Ryan Gosling), meet and fall head-over-heels one summer, but the girl’s southern gentry family refuse to entertain the prospects of their daughter marrying some poor southern white trash, and at summer’s end whisk her away to attend university in the hopes she’ll find a more suitable mate. With Allie’s Maternal Ice Queen (Joan Allen) intercepting all missives young Noah sends her way, it doesn’t take long for Allie to believe he has forgotten her, and when she meets an attractive, intelligent and attentive man, Allie is ready to move on and is eventually engaged. After a chance encounter between the two sometime later, the spark of their romance is rekindled, and Allie is forced to make a difficult choice between the two men she loves.
There is much about this film that transcends the limitations of its melodramatic conventions. The two leads are appealing enough. Rachel McAdams in particular proves an interesting choice to play Allie. So good when she’s being so bad in Mean Girls, The Notebook is her first opportunity to show what she can do when handed the lead in a romantic drama. McAdams’ native charm and Jennifer Garner good looks smooth over some of the rougher edges of her more intensely dramatic moments. Ryan Gosling, attempting mightily to channel a young Jeff Bridges, while lacking some of the man’s gravitas, which would have lent his character’s romantic extraordinariness – he reads Whitman and can build his own house, ladies – and his subsequent descent into alcohol-bingeing self-pity a little more authenticity, proves capable as the young Noah. The Notebook also boasts healthy dollops of humour, which leaven the effects of an otherwise turgid tortured romance. Also, the “other man” in this triangle is not your typical villain, but turns out to be a rather decent chap. Good looking, smart and sweet; he’s downright endearing, in fact. Finally, the always strong Allen brings considerable depth to a role that could otherwise be dismissed as two-dimensional.
However, there continues to be reason to fret over the direction of Cassavettes’ career. The Notebook is the kind of conventional film that his papa never would’ve made. First with John Q and now here, he has begun indulging in a sentimental tear-jerking romanticism that he managed to mask so well with the unusual story of oddball characters in She’s So Lovely. Playing with age-old conflicts and themes, Cassavettes brings nothing new to the table, and seems satisfied to allow this cornball story to play itself out without providing it with a personal stamp. As a result, despite the pleasant surprise that The Notebook isn’t completely rancid, the film proves ultimately and unfortunately completely forgettable.
