Ramblings of an Anonymous Coward

The Notebook

after a lengthy trip to the dentist today where the film the notebook was being talked up, i finally found some time to sit down and watch. it wasn't quite what i was expecting. it was certainly a proverbial chick flick and the movie style was a bit of a mash-up of "50 first dates" and "the princess bride". if you haven't seen it, stop reading now and go rent it (and don't forget the tissues).

reading further may spoil the movie for you. consider yourself warned.

the film has two tracks to it, one is the story which most identify with through the notebook trailers -- boy meets girl, loses girl, blah, blah, blah. the second is how the story is being told -- an aging man is telling the story to a woman of similar age in a nursing home. she is suffering from dementia and memory loss while he has suffered several heart attacks but is clearly trying to be "ok" and appear strong and healthy. as you can guess, it is revealed as the story goes on that he is in fact the main character (noah) and is reading the story to his love -- allie. so while the story itself is about love and romance in their youth, you slowly discover that it carries on deeply to that very moment. to the time, then, where he is reading their story to her in the hopes that she will remember.

the early story has the pair meet up. allie is not interested, but noah is persistent and eventually gets enough of her attention to spark a romance. she is the stereo-typical rich girl and he the poor boy. as expected, the parents don't approve and allie ends up moving away. noah writes her every day for a year, but the well-intentioned mother never gives her the letters and eventually they both get on with their lives.

seeing as the film is from the ww2 era, allie meets up with a soldier that happens to also be from a wealthy family. he is charming and falls for her right away. she, too, is in love and they plan to wed. as hollywood-fate would have it, as they look in the social section of the paper for their announcement, noah's picture is there in front of the estate he told allie he dreamt of buying and fixing up. so off she went to bring closure to that past relationship.

meanwhile, noah did a stint in the military as well, had his best friend die next to him and returned home eventually getting that home and rebuilding it like he dreamed. and of course took into account the suggestions allie gave him when he shared that dream with here -- white with blue shutters...

allie's mother eventually steps in again when she goes to essentially see wtf was going on. well, she knew, but she of course had her agenda. in a bit of a twist, the mother shared a deep secret -- she too had a "summer love", but took the secure path marrying allie's father all the time making it painfully clear how much she loved allie's father. as she sent her daughter off, she handed her the stack of letters noah had sent and told her she hoped she would make the right choice. her sharing her secret, of course, made it fuzzy now to what the mother felt was the right choice as well.

lets cut to the chase -- after some gut-wrenching moments, and in much expected hollywood fashion allie went back to noah. i was somewhat expecting a late twist with the elderly man (reading the story) who was always referred to as duke to actually be the man allie failed to choose (lon), but it was not to be. and that is a good thing as i think it would have pushed reality completely over the edge. even by hollywood standards.

the movie has a lot of memorable moments and quotes, but they would all be out of context here, so i'll suggest you go watch the movie where they can be delivered as they were intended.

i give this movie 4 out of 5 stars despite the crap i'm likely to take over saying such a thing.

Posted by ac at February 22, 2005 08:14 PM