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.
Still, despite their remarkable chemistry, you can tell this is an improbable romance because James Garner says so. "It was an improbable romance," he explains. "He was a country boy, and she was from the city. She had the world at her feet while he didn't have two dimes to rub together."
Plus, she has douchebag parents.
Three-time Oscar nominee Joan Allen is reduced to the kind of patrician stuffiness usually reserved for Masterpiece Theatre countesses. Her husband (David Thornton) is reduced either to inventing Pringles or drinking your milkshake (drinking it up).
Garner keeps reading to Rowlands, and soon he explains that despite their differences, these two kids loved each other. "Despite their differences, they had one thing in common," he says. "They were crazy about each other." See? They even have sex in abandoned houses. Crazy! In love, I mean.
Sinister, sexy, and predating the video for "You Are Not Alone" by 55 years.
But circumstances drive Noah and Allie apart: Noah goes to war, and Allie meets someone else as a nurse. When Noah gets back, it's clear he's endured a trauma worse than any Deer Hunter vet, because he decides to build Allie's dream house to woo her back into his life. Pitiful. I mean, romantic.
Lo and behold they end up together. Spoiler, etc. So far I've described A Tepid Movie We Coo At, not a Bad Movie We Love, but hold your horses, fair maiden: Gena Rowlands' Awwwlzheimer's turns into Bawlzheimer's in the final act, and we realize that the old couple is Noah and Allie, except older now. Oh! Mind-shattering. You know who else realizes this connection? Allie herself, whose dementia slips off her body like an anorak for a five-minute interval.
"I think I've heard this one before -- maybe more than once," she suspects at first.
Close, Allie. Keep guessing, using your dementia/detective skills to guide you.
"Oh, I do wish I could figure out the end of this story!" she says later.
Wait, Allie: You have the cogency to understand a narrative, but you can't figure out that the two dunderheaded, idealistic romantics end up together? You really do have something terminal.
"I remember now!" she clamors at the film's climax. "It was us! It was us!"
In real life, the James Garner character would now yell, "Yes, Allie! You are always so damn slow at this!" but instead he's delighted she's back in her own mind. After she briefly relapses into confusion and he has a health scare of his own, the two oldies fall asleep together, recognize each other for a brief moment, and die holding hands. Heartwarming, if you like to watch people perishing on one another.
The Long Goodbye this isn't. Or Iris. Or even that episode of Step by Step where Cody is struck by lightning and can't remember his life or how to say "Dana-burger" right. No, this is candy-colored schmaltz with a big geriatric joke sprinkled throughout -- and Lord, it is addicting. Have you seen this Ryan Gosling person? Here he is naked.
Such a winsome piece. If it weren't for Allie's horrible family, this movie would be a problem-free sex romp for the characters and home viewers. But Rachel McAdams's horrible screen families have a way of ruining horndog buzz.
Nice try, Gena Rowlands, but remembering is a fate worse than forgetting.