Behind every selfish love is a stupid, boring story.

Rating: 3/10 (8 February 2005)

The Notebook is a film that epitomizes many people's hatred of chick flicks. It's a simple, prototypical story that you've heard a million times before.
Poor Boy meets Rich Girl. Poor Boy does something crazy to get Rich Girl's attention. Poor Boy continues doing crazy things, and convinces Rich Girl that there's more to life than being rich and doing rich guy stuff. Rich Girl starts doing crazy things; crazier than even Poor Boy would do.
Poor Boy and Rich Girl fall deliriously in love with each other over the course of two months, when Rich Girl's parents try to interfere with the young couple's love. (In The Notebook, Rich Girl's father has his villainy exacerbated by the presence of facial hair, a la Star Trek.) Rich Girl is torn away from Poor Boy. They lose touch, because someone has chosen to conceal Poor Boy's efforts to contact Rich Girl.
Poor Boy goes to war, and his buddy (who has received all of two minutes of screen time earlier in the movie) meets a tragic and sudden demise.
Meanwhile, Rich Girl forgets about Poor Boy and gets engaged to Rich Boy. Poor Boy comes home, his dad dies, and he goes nuts and bums around for a living.
Rich Girl becomes suddenly aware of Poor Boy again, and goes to visit him. A playful frolic in the rain leads to a steamy extramarital affair (poorly lit, of course... this IS PG-13, after all).
Rich Girl's mom decides to let Rich Girl know the truth about Poor Boy's attempts to communicate with her. Rich Girl decides to go with Poor Boy, ditching her fiancé. Everyone still thinks she's the greatest thing since chocolate covered gummy bears. Love predictably conquers all, and Rich Girl and Poor Boy grow old and die in each other's arms.
Utterly clichéd.
All of this is centered around Poor Boy's obsessive and maladaptive golden years. Rich Girl has succumbed to Alzheimer's, and doesn't remember a thing about her life until Poor Boy reads her the agonizing story of their lives together. She then comes to for about five minutes, then goes nuts because a strange man is caressing her and referring to her with terms of endearment. Poor Boy's children and grandchildren are at home, and they miss him. They have their wits about them, and they need him. Poor Boy insists that Rich Girl needs him, but she isn't even aware of who he is until late every night. He's just another stranger until that time. Why wouldn't he stay at home with the people who love and miss him, and visit Rich Girl every week or so?
On the day that we are so greatly blessed to witness, she wakes up in the middle of the night with all knowledge of her life thus far, then goes to sleep with her husband Poor Boy, and never wakes up.
It's depressing, immoral, predictable, and a hulking bore, yet it is promoted by most everyone as being a great and wholesome love story.
Don't listen to the people who recommend this. Eat glass before you watch this movie. It'll be easier on your stomach.
3/10