Attractive, enjoyable, but unsurprising, love story.

Rating: Null/10 (21 December 2006)

A surprise hit in this day of high-adrenaline adventure, lewd comedy and seedy crime films, this unabashedly romantic, yet startlingly conventional, romance has amassed a sizable following. Garner plays an elderly man who visits a elderly woman (Rowlands) suffering from dementia. Part of his therapy for her is to read from a notebook which tells the story of a pair of kids in the 1940's who find love and suffer separation, in part due to their different social backgrounds. Gosling is a poor, but nice, boy who dreams of restoring an old local mansion. McAdams is a wealthy, at times petulant, reasonably-cultured girl who has her future as a college student mapped out for her. When they meet up and fall for each other, her stern parents make sure to nip the romance in the bud, eventually causing her to fall for Marsden. Garner reads this story to Rowlands as the love affair is shown in flashback until finally, it seems as if Rowlands may know the participants of the story and begin to remember the situation. The film is lovingly crafted and beautifully shot. Garner is excellent and Rowlands is solid as well, even if she looks like no other dementia patient on God's planet, immaculately dressed, coiffed and made-up as she is and living in a fairy tale nursing home. Gosling is an appealing presence and McAdams gives a breathless and fresh performance. Neither of them go very far in suggesting the time period in which their characters live and they turn in very contemporary-tinged portrayals. (Some extra hot loves scenes were trimmed somewhat for the release print to at least preserve some small amount of decorum in the flashback story.) Excellent support comes from Allen, as McAdams' tightly-wound mother. Thornton, as her father, is a jarring caricature who does everything but twirl his moustache. Shepard plays Gosling's simple, but caring, father adeptly. Marsdon is attractive and likable in a fairly thankless part. Garner's children are portrayed by three of the least charismatic and compelling actors imaginable. Their very brief scene wounds the film, though not fatally. There are many romantic, funny and swooning moments as it attempts to display the great love between the youngsters. At times, this comes off as a dry-docked "Titanic" - minus the disaster, especially when Gosling sits down to dinner with the ritzy set. The chief issue with the film is that it seems bent on protecting a big secret (which couldn't be more obvious!) while the audience tries to wonder whether some other surprise will come about, since the "big reveal" becomes clear long before the alleged revelatory moment. Any bit of mystery or dramatic suspense is dissipated as what was painfully obvious is uncovered to be just what it seemed like. Still, lovers of love stories will be satisfied, even as the overlong film limps along to an even less rewarding climax. Romantics will appreciate the bond between the lovers while cynics will wonder what the point of the film even was.... Based on a wildly successful novel and directed by the son of Rowlands and experimental director John Cassavetes.