Bad Movies We Love: The Notebook
Before Ryan Gosling sent blue valentines to the Academy, he sent regular old valentines to the romcom community with The Notebook, this week's addition to the Bad Movies We Love vault. God, this movie. So gooey. So maudlin. And best of all, so medically improbable. If you think this story of memory loss and romance is feasible, then your favorite docudrama of the past 10 years might be 50 First Dates. Erase your common sense and join us for a lovely, super-mocking trip into The Notebook.
The setup is innocent (albeit Nicholas Sparks-ian) enough: James Garner plays a mushy romantic who visits a nursing home and reads stories to a lady with "dementia" played by Gena Rowlands. Now, this ain't exactly the dementia you've read about.
She's alert, communicative, and styled like Bunny McDougal from Sex and the City. Words, social graces, and logic come easily enough, but she can't remember her past at all. I'm going to call this affliction Awwwwlzheimer's.
Not a second too soon, we jump into Garner's story for the day: A coupla crazy romantics, Noah and Allie, meet at a carnival in 1940 and become the dreamiest, most camera-loved coupla lovers in the world. Coupla things: 1. Noah is played by Ryan Gosling. If you are looking to become a notable romcom star, "Gosling" is an ideal name. That's like if Jake Gyllenhaal was named Jake Puppy. Which he always should've been. And 2. Noah looks like a Newsie here, and that automatically qualifies The Notebook for Bad Movie We Love canonization.
His lovely lass is a privileged Sarah Lawrence prospect played by Rachel McAdams. Her life is clogged with tennis lessons, Latin class, piano, French, and a secret deal with Clairol that's never discussed in the movie. As Garner keeps reading from their story, we learn Noah and Allie enjoy all sorts of annoying crap with each other.
Laying down in the middle of the street like assholes, for one.
Or playing grab-ass on the sidewalks and predating "The Way You Make Me Feel" by 48 years. Hooo!
Or comparing themselves to birds at one point. Jesus.
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Comments
I saw this movie on a date and the guy wept like a baby at the end. Needless to say, it didn't work out.
I have the feeling this is a common Notebook spiral.
I may be remembering this incorrectly, because this movie is about the silliest thing ever made, for many of the reasons you point out, but: doesn't Garner's character even claim, for 2/3 of the movie, that his name is "Reggie" or something, for no other purpose than to obscure the IT'S US reveal that surprises no one?
He may have been shouting "Rosebud is your sled, Allie!" for all I remember. I tuned his tired ass out.