#THE NOTEBOOK MOVIE#

Oh, God, Noah writes Allie a repentant love letter a day for 365 days, “but they all went unanswered,” explains Duke.Allie’s family leaves town, and she asks his buddy to tell him she loves him, but the buddy insists it’s over.

She rebels, but Noah (who’s overheard her mom calling him “trash”) breaks up with her anyway. The gauntlet is laid down: Allie is not to see Noah anymore. While Allie and Noah were, her rich, mean parents were sending the cops out to look for her.Sex scene time! It’s actually very awkward and sweet and realistic, if “realism” can include losing your virginity to Ryan Gosling.Somehow, I had repressed until this viewing that the giant, old house that Noah takes Allie to-the one he dreams of buying and fixing up-is, uh, on a plantation.(Good luck finding a boyfriend there, sweetie!) The seed is planted that Allie is going away to Sarah Lawrence College at the end of the summer. Allie’s rich, mean dad, who sports one of the most-luxurious mustaches ever seen on film, is not on board with Noah at all, because he works at the lumberyard.She meets his dad, they kiss a lot, and the immortal-and nonsensical-line, “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird,” is uttered. I have to say, the chemistry between Gosling and McAdams still holds up, 16 years later. Dumb! Nonetheless, soon they’re totes Dating with a capital D. Noah, Noted Bad Boy™, convinces her to lie in the middle of the road and watch the traffic lights change. Allie describes a very rigorous routine of tennis, dance, piano, French lessons, et cetera, that I know is supposed to signal that she’s over-scheduled and uptight, but all I feel is jealousy of the fact that someone is sponsoring her self-improvement.Although it is kind of sexy when he tells Allie, “I can be whatever you want.” His eyes are weirdly vacant (no offense, Gosling) and his continuing courtship of Allie in spite of her ambivalence is just not getting it done for me.

#THE NOTEBOOK MOVIE#

I really feel like Noah was hotter when I watched this movie as an impressionable 11-year-old.

(Note to any straight men who might be reading this: If you have to peer-pressure her into going out with you while you’re literally hanging from a rickety carnival ride, that may not be “enthusiastic consent.”) Allie (McAdams) won’t ride the Ferris wheel with Noah, so he literally climbs the Ferris wheel to ask her out while she’s riding with another guy, which is exactly the kind of terrifying macho behavior that rom-coms are so good at normalizing. The story concerns Noah and Allie, two 1940s-era cuties who meet at a carnival while Noah (Gosling) is wearing a newsboy cap so gigantic that I can’t restrain myself from yelling “NEWSBOY CAP!” in every scene it’s in.

We meet a charming older man named Duke at an assisted-living facility, who shows up to read to a confused and nervous-seeming older woman.

Didn’t predict this movie being rewatched in 2020 under the looming specter of total climate disaster, did you, Nicholas Sparks?

Someone is canoeing under a very red sky, which is presumably supposed to be scenic and moody, but just makes me think of the West Coast fires.

(To be honest, the only thing I remembered about this movie at first was their kiss in the rain, so it was a true deep-dive into early-aughts film lore.) (Sorry, I’m single.)Īs much as the formulaic twists and turns of rom-coms can make my eyes roll, I can’t seem to help myself from watching them compulsively and dissolving into tears upon their often-predictable conclusion on that note, I present a list of everything I thought while revisiting the 2004 Ryan Gosling/Rachel McAdams classic, The Notebook.

From Never Been Kissed to He’s Just Not That Into You, rom-coms-the more saccharine and implausible the better-allow us to escape our current reality and relax into the warmth of a world in which Prince Charming shows up to kiss you in front of all your classmates, or colleagues, or whichever group of people you’re relegating to the role of “audience” in your inherently self-involved love story. As summer turns to fall and the COVID-19 pandemic continues to haunt us, the power of the romantic comedy has never been more obvious.

The notebook