Noah And Allie Bridging The Years

Rating: 10/10 (15 August 2008)

James Garner and Gena Rowlands and Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdam pay the same pair of lovers during the World War II years and up to the present day. All four of them and the cast assembled by director Nick Cassavetes present a wonderful romantic film that will bridge the generations.
We meet Noah and Allie in their old age at first. We see their story later unfold, but we learn that while they may have lived happily it was not ever after as old phrase goes.
Old age is a time of memories and if you're lucky enough to find your soulmate they will be shared memories. And that's half the enjoyment of memories, someone to remember the shared experience with.
But when one of the partners develops Alzheimer's it's devastating for the one who doesn't have it to watch the other deteriorate. And that's what's happening with Garner as he visits Rowlands in a nursing home.
On this visit he's prepared though. Garner has brought a notebook in which he's written down their story. The nurse introduces him as a stranger who takes her outside and proceeds to read their story as though this happened to two other people in an attempt to reach Rowlands.
And in flashback we see their story and as Gosling and McAdams we see the ups and downs of a poor boy/rich girl romance. That makes up the bulk of the film. Gosling and McAdams are most definitely each other's soulmates, but her parents do their best to keep them apart and both get involved with other people, Jamie Anne Allman and James Marsden.
The sad message is that even for the most right of couples, there's no such thing as happily FOREVER after at least on this Earth. I've had several two aunts with Alzheimer's disease and I could relate to what Garner was going through with Rowlands. And I have aunt right now who is 89 and in my last conversation with her I could see her memory going and how that must be affecting my uncle who is the same age.
The four leads and the rest of the cast are just perfect in their parts. Director Nick Cassavetes is of course directing his mother here and you know they were completely in sync. I cannot believe The Notebook got no Oscar nominations at all, it's a travesty how it was overlooked by the Academy. It did get several awards and nominations from other venues, but not from the Academy.
The Notebook is a perfect romantic story and the nature of it will appeal to all the generations we have living on the planet.