Release Date:
06/25/2004
If you're not a fan of watching old people dying slowly, then beg, plead, or break up with your girlfriend in order to get out of seeing The Notebook. The mushfest begins with James Garner as a nursing home patient who spends every day reading from a handwritten journal to Gena Rowlands, a fellow resident who suffers from Alzheimer's. The more Garner reads, the more Rowlands begins to recognize the story, which begins when good-hearted lumberyard worker Noah (Ryan Gosling) falls instantly for uptight Southern debutante Allie (Rachel McAdams). Through a series of flashbacks, we observe the two in a constant state of PDA, professing their love until Allie heads to college. Traditional romantic movie platitudes fill the next few years: disapproving parents, love letters that never reach Allie, WWII, and an impending marriage to the perfect man. By this point, even an Alzheimer's sufferer can figure out the elderly couple were the young kids, and the incredibly contrived writing and heavy-handed direction are too much to overcome even if you've forgotten every love story cliché from the past 20 years.