Poll Position: The Notebook (2004)

Last week we had a poll about romance movies, and I tried to put a good selection together with Puneet. I had a feeling this one would win, but I was secretly hoping it wouldn't. The Notebook didn't win outright though, like I had thought it might. Instead it tied with The Lake House, which I guess we'll be watching tomorrow. The Notebook is known kinda as the king of all romance films, and also incredibly sad. I'm not terribly interested in a movie with that kind of description, but the choice wasn't up to me. Hit the jump to see what I thought of The Notebook.


The story starts off with an elderly couple. The woman suffers from dementia, so the man reads her a love story everyday as it seems to calm her. The story he reads is about a young pair named Allie and Noah. It's all about how they meet and fall in love and are pulled apart by their backgrounds. She's from a wealthy family and he just works at the lumber yard in a small town. The real heart of the story is how they meet again years later, both now having very different lives.

I should state right off the bat that this just wasn't a movie for me. It was sappy and cheesy and so sweet it hurt. Even so, I can see that it's a well made movie. The period pieces of the young couple all feel real and look the part. The story also has a bit of a twist, but if you don't see it coming from the very beginning of the movie, probably anything could surprise you.

I think the strength of this movie, for those who like it, is most likely the screenplay. All the heart strings are tugged by the sweet things Ryan Gosling's character comes up with to say to Allie. Sometimes the things he says are just impossibly sweet though, but if they were just regular sweetness, it wouldn't hit home I suppose.

Maybe the strength comes from the characters. For the most part they right true and seem like genuine people. Then again, thinking back on it, the young couple seem so over the top that it just can't be real. Then again, they are just the characters the older gentleman is reading in a story, so I'm sure all the best bits are embellished. The older couple feel much more grounded and real, and there's some hard realities when issues of the woman's dementia come up. That moment was not a comfortable thing to watch.

The situation also seems to let Allie off the hook for what she does far too easily. Then again, the whole story seems to be from the woman's point of view, so it generally just sees the story from her perspective and much more of the difficulties and choices she has to deal with. Noah's story is there, but it's very vague and has very little detail. He's just kinda sad for most of the film and there just doesn't seem to be much depth to his character beyond "he was so sad".

I did find it kinda sad at a few points, but the whole thing just seemed so "fairy tale" that I just couldn't take it that seriously. Especially the ending. I was left with a feeling of "What? Really?" when the finale hit that I just couldn't buy. The whole movie is just too sappy for words.

I've been pretty harsh on The Notebook, but lets be honest, I'm not the target audience. The movie is told from the female perspective because the movie is for women. It's made this way so they can relate to it more easily. The young people are sweet and pretty and sexy, and everything has a happy ending. The girl is absolved of all wrong doing because she's so perfect and so it's ok. The whole thing is just a dream fantasy that simply doesn't happen in real life.

I have no doubt that lots of people like and even love this movie, it's been crafted to hit all the heart strings just the right way. But when I look back at it, all I can see is the implausibility of the situations and acts in the film. I find myself still willing to recommend it though, to those people who really like romance movies. You'll find yourself being swept away in the moment just like young lovers do. Just don't think about it too critically after wards lest you let it fall apart in your hands.