Friday, June 25, 2004
Sincere acting makes the movie stand out among chick flicks.
By JAY BOYAR
ORLANDO SENTINEL
What's the difference between a weepie and an honest drama?
The weepie deals in clich & eacute;s and hits you where you're most vulnerable.
The honest drama avoids the clich & eacute;s and hits you where you think you're strong.
By this definition, "The Notebook" must be classified as a weepie.
But there are weepies and weepies. And "The Notebook" may be the most effective one in nearly a decade -- since the film version of "The Bridges of Madison County."
Based on the 1996 bestseller by Nicholas Sparks, the new film is a tale within a tale: An old-timer, played by James Garner, reads a love story from a battered notebook to a nursing-home resident, played by Gena Rowlands.
What he reads is the familiar-sounding story of Noah and Allie, a mill worker and a debutante in the North Carolina of the early 1940s. Though worlds apart socially, these lovers are drawn together as only the young can be.
They live for each other. Yearn for each other. Burn for each other.
Key players
Noah (Ryan Gosling), tall and lean, has an amusingly flat face that gives him the appearance of an artist's sketch of a rawboned youth. And this kid certainly knows how to make his own fun out of practically nothing.
On his first date with Allie, he invites her to lie down in the middle of a little-used street. (Kids, don't try this at home.) At first she resists, but when she relents, the stunt excites her.
Where Noah affects a casual air, Allie (Rachel McAdams) is a firecracker, with the bright eyes, full lips and deep dimples of a junior-division pinup. Because her motor runs a little fast, she can't stop talking during their first serious sexual encounter.
It's funny, but it's sweet, too.
You know that these lovebirds belong together, but you also know that staying together won't be easy. For one thing, Allie's parents aren't happy about the social gulf between them.
Will parental pressure and the coming war drive the couple apart? And, if so, will they ever get back together?
For now, let's just say that if there are few genuine surprises along this road, there are also few lapses in taste.
Classy construction
Director Nick Cassavetes ("John Q," "She's So Lovely"), working from a heartfelt script by Jeremy Leven ("Don Juan DeMarco") and Jan Sardi ("Shine"), tends to understate the big scenes. He knows that they're strong stuff and that he doesn't need to oversell them.
It helps that Gosling ("The United States of Leland") throws away his lines with a James Dean shrug, and that Garner and Rowlands (Cassavetes' real-life mom) are the sort of old pros who will only do an emotional scene if they're reasonably sure that the emotions won't seem phony. (The old-timers, in fact, seem like shoo-ins for multiple awards or, at least, nominations.)
A great date movie for lovers of all ages, "The Notebook" could turn out to be the summer's word-of-mouth sleeper hit. And if it does, a lot of credit goes to McAdams.
As the waspish queen bee in the recent "Mean Girls," she seemed confidently cruel, as well as the epitome of modern teendom. But here, as Allie, she embodies the innocent essence of '40s romance.