Poster

Here comes Valentine’s day, I’d like to recommend a classic affactional film for you and your lover. Enjoy~

Director: Nick Cassavetes
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Gena Rowlands

Adapted from a bestselling novel, The Notebook is the simple story of a privileged young woman who falls in love with a inferior boy.
The story has an unusual framework: it begins at a nursing home, where an elderly woman suffering from dementia is paid a visit by a man who offers to read her a story. As the film develops – mostly in amber-hued flashbacks to the 1940s – it becomes apparent that the older man and woman have a pivotal stake in the following story. The main action revolves around 17-year old Allie Hamilton, a free-spirited young woman whose rebellious instincts are tempered by her strict, domineering parents. While summering in the town of Seabrook, Allie catches the eye of one of the local boys, a charismatic lumberyard worker named Noah Calhoun .
Despite their wildly different backgrounds,  it is not long before the two become inseparable, much to the horror of Allie’s upper-crust family.
Eventually, Allie’s mother intervenes, insisting on an end to the romance and dragging her daughter back to the family home in Charleston. While Allie is reluctantly shipped off to university in New York, Noah stays in Seabrook, writing his beloved letters every day for a year. Thanks to Mrs. Hamilton, the letters go unread, and Noah decides to give up. Shortly thereafter, he enlists in the army and goes off to Europe to fight in the war.
Once the war ends, Noah decides to put his all into building the dream house that he and Allie spoke of in their youth. His discovery of Allie’s engagement to a rich, handsome war veteran only fuels his determination, and it is not long before the two cross paths meet again.

the most romantic scene

To be fair, the story is filled with enough clichés to sink the boat that Noah is seen doggedly rowing in order to vent the frustrations of his lost love. The Notebook is a soapy, glossy drama that gives the audience what it wants and then some.
Taking this into consideration makes the performances of the lead actors all the more remarkable. Making a boat ride in a lake filled with swans seem like a true-to-life experience is a considerable challenge, and it is to the director and actors’ enormous credit that they actually pull it off. In the overtly emotional role of Allie, Rachel McAdams gives a career-making performance, filling each scene she’s in with a warmth, energy, and spark. Without Gosling, McAdams, Rowland, and Garner, The Notebook could have easily dissolved into a syrupy mess. It is their conviction and dedication that pulls it back to earth each time it teeters on the edge of sentimentality, and that ultimately makes it one of that year’s more enjoyable Hollywood delicacies.