The Notebook Movie Review

        Young love seems to be popping up everywhere these days. Teenagers throughout the world are trying to follow in the footsteps of the new romantic movie, “The Notebook”, made from Nicholas Sparks’ best-selling novel.

       The movie starts out with music playing in the background, showing a lake with an elderly woman looking out over it. We later find out that is an elderly woman who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Her husband, Noah Calhoun, reads the story of their love to her every day in hopes that one day she will remember him. He never gives up hope, no matter how many people tell him that it will never work.

      This is every teenager’s fantasy. When a girl hears how Noah feels about Allie, she feels that she wants that kind of love. Who doesn’t? Is what everyone would think. Though most find it unrealistic, some keep the high hopes of finding this kind of love and being with their boyfriend or girlfriend forever.

    Since the movie has been out for a while now, there has been multiple premieres on television, forcing teenagers to see the movie. They are pulled in by the idea that they will find this kind of love, making other love seem unreal. The movie is just a romantic fantasy that people get caught up in.

    The movie is told in flashbacks from Noah reading to Allie. They show the older Noah reading to the older Allie, and then it flashes back to where the two first met, until they got married. Their children are shown visiting them, but Allie does not know that they are her children, as she has Alzheimer’s.

    Gena Rowland’s, who plays Allie, looks much too alive of a person to be playing someone with this disease. When a person develops Alzheimer’s, they usually lose a lot of weight and look very depressed. Gena Rowland’s looks healthy and has her makeup done throughout the movie. Although it is just a movie, that is another element that makes the movie less realistic and more of a fantasy. Most people wish that their loved ones who had/have Alzheimer’s disease look that good, but they don’t.

    The two elderly people sugarcoat the truth of being old. They both are particularly positive, and though Noah cries when Allie forgets who he is, his character looks happy otherwise. Allie seems to forget who Noah is, which, don’t get me wrong, is very sad, but there are other things you forget when you have Alzheimer’s. This includes eating, walking, and talking. Allie can do all of these. If she was early into the disease, then maybe it would be more realistic, but it’s not.

   The romantic drama, directed by Nick Cassavetes is very well produced in the way of being a fantasy. All of the scenery is amazing, and the places that the couple is shown are old-fashioned and romantic. The photography is perfect. It adds an extra fantasy element to the movie.

   She is a rich girl caught up in loving someone who is setting her free from her very complicated life that is scheduled by her controlling parents. They disobey her parents by keeping their relationship alive, which then turns downhill when Allie has to move away in the fall for school. Her mother throws away all of the letters that Noah writes for her, forcing Allie to forget about him. Anyone could guess that this would happen.

    Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, who play the roles of Noah and Allie, are, with no doubt, amazing actors and actresses. They are the perfect two to play the roles of the young couple in love. From their facial expressions to the way they sound when they talk is perfect. The two even look good together.

   Rachel McAdams dressed as an olden-day girl is perfect. She is a cliché of what people dressed like and did their hair like if they were of the higher class in the olden-days. Gosling, also, looks like an olden day man who is of the working class. The way he is scruffy and wears beat up clothes is the perfect portrayal of someone who lived back then and worked in a mine, which he does.
   The movie sets standards for girls everywhere on what love should be like. It makes them believe that every relationship is supposed to be like this, and if it’s not then it isn’t a real life relationship. Being a book is one thing, because not everybody reads all of the time, but a lot of people watch movies and their minds are forced to believe that what happens in movies is what happens in real life.

    Noah and Allie fight a couple times in the movie, but about ten seconds after they are made up or thinking about each other and missing one another. This puts the thought in people’s heads that relationships are all rainbows and butterflies but no rain. This is not true.

    Though they did a very great job in putting the movie together, like most other movies it is not a reality; it is a fantasy that we all wish we could live.