The Notebook

The Notebook. (2004)

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams.
Director: Nick Cassavetes.
Running time: 123 min.
Drama, Romace.

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As an adaptation of the best-selling novel, The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, this film comes to be about a touching “true love” story, and about how two people’s love can endure and grow with the time, no matter the distance.

The story begins with an old man (James Garner) who’s reading a story to an old woman (Gena Rowland), a story that apparently has a meaning for him. In this story, Rachel McAdams plays Allie Hamilton, a rich girl who comes to pass the summer in a small town; there she meets Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) who is a hard working but poor country boy.

Despite their differences, he falls in love with her at first sight, and after Noah’s insistence on going out on a date, she starts falling for him too. When Allie’s parents begin to notice that hers is not only a summer love but something more serious, they decide to go back to the city and get Allie to start collage. It’s only after a long time, days before her wedding, that they get to see each other again. It’s then that they start to figure out what went wrong between them when she first left.

I really like the way this film is composed. Personally, I think that the movie is a little better than the novel, given that the events happen more dramatically and in a way that makes the audience understand Noah and Allie better. I think both Rachel and Ryan did an awesome job here, both connecting to their characters and showing how different they were and how deeply in love they fell. But in my opinion, Jan Sardi did the best job on the adaptation. Although the movie and the novel have many things in common, I think the movie is utterly fantastic. It made me cry, laugh, smile and the end is really touching, whilst in the book it is not. If you ask me, I think this is a movie everyone will like, men and women, teenagers and elders. I think everyone can relate to it in some way or another.