"The Notebook"

I’ve got an older movie for you to check out in case you missed it back when it came out in 2004. It’s called “The Notebook.” This book turned movie is definitely more along the lines of a “Chick Flick,” however it was so well done that I found myself enjoying the entire film. As I’m finding out quite often, there are these little gem movies that just continue to fly under my radar that I stumble across down the road and they end up making a great weekend rental.

Gena Rowlands plays Allie Calhoun. She is an old woman stuck in an old folk’s home towards the end of her days. The disease she is dying from has robbed her of her memory with the exception of brief snippets of time where she wakes back to the reality of her real life. For the rest of the time she doesn’t remember anyone or anything. James Garner plays the character of Duke. He visits Allie every day at the old folk’s home, and reads to Allie out of a book. The book contains the touching love story of two kids that meet and fall in love, but because of their different backgrounds (one rich the other not) they are forbidden to see each other. The broken hearted boy goes off to war, and sends letter after letter, but they all go unanswered because the mother hides them from the girl. Every once in a great while as Duke reads to Allie, this story manages to find that deep place still buried in her mind of her real life the way it was, but most of the time it is just a sweet love story she enjoys hearing.

The main part of this story is the actual kids as they fall in love, and end up being separated. Ryan Gosling plays the young man. Noah Calhoun. He has started to stack up a nice little list of movies, and his acting is very good in this one. Rachel McAdams plays the young Allie Hamilton, and her acting is equally as good as her counterpart. These two are wonderful together as kids, and later on as adults that meet again to re-kindle what was once lost. I’m afraid I can’t get much more into the plot of the movie because the story that leads up to the sad but very fitting, and touching end would be spoiled, and for once Hollywood got this ending right so heaven forbid I blow it by giving out TMI.

I for sure have to give a nice shout out to director Nick Cassavetes. While he has quite a few feathers in his cap, this is one of the more bright ones that are worth mentioning. The casting for this project is A+ across the board. The scenery, cinematography, pageantry and all around good shots in “The Notebook” is also top notch. As I’m sitting back trying to remember anything bad about this movie, I’m just not finding anything. Perhaps the story takes a little while to unfold and take shape, but with a good story line like this, it’s worth the wait. If like me you never even heard of this movie until now, or did hear about it, but didn’t watch it, go grab it for this weekend, you won’t be disappointed.

My rating for this movie is 8.00 out of 10.00