Every day, Noah (James Garner) visits a lonely lady named Allie (Gena Rowlands),
who resides in the same nursing home and is suffering from Alzheimers. Noah
reads Allie passages from a notebook he keeps, of a love story he holds dear to
his heart. The story rouses Allie's imagination more than any pill or doctor
ever could. As Noah reads from the notebook, the images of the story, featuring
two young lovers (Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling) through their trials and
tribulations, appear as a part of a puzzle that Allie anxiously tries to figure
out.
Based on Nicholas Sparks' best selling novel, "The Notebook" (IMDb listing) isn't your
standard romantic movie fare. Sure, you still get the requisite tears and swoon
for your buck, and in a nice, sweet package, too. But this adaptation is a
little more odd than it lets on, due to the interesting filmmaking pedigree
found all over the production.
The film is directed by Nick Cassavetes, who is the son of legendary filmmaker
John Cassavetes, of "Faces" and "A Woman Under the Influence" fame. The elder
Cassavetes typically employed an improvisational acting style in his films, in
search of realism and truth behind drama. While Nick has enjoyed a decent
directorial career so far ("She's So Lovely," "Unhook the Stars"), he's always
stuck to the script and kept away from aping his father's vision. "The Notebook"
is a rapturous southern-fried romance, unfurled by Sparks in a heavily
melodramatic way, with big movements and a keen eye for sentimentality.
Cassavetes' "Notebook" is no stranger to cornball acts of affection, but the
filmmaker also makes a curious choice and lets his two younger stars, McAdams
and Gosling, find the heart of the scene by themselves, through passionate
improvisation.
To be honest, the effect is interesting, but also deeply unsettling.
Traditionally, romantic movies of this nature feature a highly controlled type
of chest thumping and tragedy, which squeezes audience reactions tightly through
such manipulation. "Notebook" chooses its moments of greatest conflict as
opportunities for Gosling and McAdams to freely go after each other, either
screaming over each other's lines or completely stumped for dialog. Cassevetes
is going for the honesty inside the young lovers' passions, but the two actors
are mismatched in the improv arena. McAdams ("Mean Girls") brings a bright spark
to this movie, and truly delivers a breakthrough performance as a young woman
trapped in a privileged life, but desiring someone below her class. Her scenes
alone carry the flashback section of the film, with the actress perfectly
capturing the frustrations of choosing between an easy life or a life that feeds
the soul.
Gosling ("The United States of Leland") is bigger trouble. Awfully fond of his
Brandoesque brood and method approach to performance, the young actor has
trouble stepping out from behind his mumbles and blank stares to really register
with his character. Similar to Brad Pitt's turn as the hunky man-of-the-land in
"Legends of the Fall," Gosling is stuck between playing up the Fabio romance
novel cover elements of the character and his own idiosyncratic ideas of
conveying desire and despair. The two performance approaches do not intermingle,
at least with Gosling (Pitt made it work), who needs to find a director who will
explore his quizzical personality a little more deeply. Cassevetes is all too
comfortable with Gosling brooding his way around the frame; barely registering
on the radar the way McAdams does with a simple inhale.
The two real joys of the film are Garner and Rowlands (Nick's real life mom),
though their section of the film is fairly small. Cassavetes uses this time
well, lightly revealing the reason for Noah's visits as the film rolls out, and
keeping a tight concentration on these two glorious veterans of the film
business. If it weren't for a simple one-minute exchange of dialog and
declaration of love and commitment between these two actors near the end of the
film, "The Notebook" wouldn't resonate at all. That says a lot about veteran
star power.
Filmfodder Grade: B
