Saved By Electric Casting

Rating: Null/10 (4 July 2004)

"The Notebook" has a script and dialogue that even my die-hard teen girl and fellow crone chick flick fans tittered and gagged at a recent matinee.

While I am in general fed up with stereotypical high-school romances being pictured as the Love of One's Life story line, this brief teen summer fling turning eternal was ridiculous, but I haven't read the original Nicholas Sparks book to know what was faithful or changed as the central characters have zero on which to base a relationship.
But there are salvageable elements.
I came out of curiosity to see Ryan Gosling as a big budget romantic lead, as opposed to his tortured misfits in indie films like "The Slaughter Rule" and "United States of Leland." While it strained credulity to the utmost that this carpenter from the wrong side of the tracks reads aloud from Whitman to entertain his dad (who prefers Tennyson, but then he's played by Sam Shephard), he is undeniably captivating eye candy.

The surprise was how good his co-star Rachel McAdams was. She lit up the screen like an old-fashioned movie star discovery so that you know that they're meant to be together just because the chemistry is much more electric than any suspense (though I am curious to see how Sparks defined "waiting for you for seven years"). Kudos to director Nicholas Cassavetes for casting McAdams - perhaps inspired by his mother Gena Rowlands, both as a life example and for the plot.
It's the kind of movie where I had plenty of time to think about why talented young actresses have been missing from romantic roles for so long, whether in chick flicks or action movies - even the MTV "Best Couples Award" is tending to go to same-sex buddies. Instead, we have had to endure wooden acting by models with little or no acting talent across from young guys whose attraction does put my fanny in the seat. Which led me to consider several theories about why those with little non-visual talents are getting cast and how this movie and Cassavetes are different:
1) the casting couch is still in play and these women are doing traditional auditions;
2) the male directors have zero conception of what constitutes male/female chemistry on-screen because they play for another team;

3) the male lead is an egotist who doesn't want his light diminished, not realizing that a great pairing is synergistic;
4) TPTB think the movie can be marketed to men and so the women on the screen can just be wallpaper.
While the hair and costumes seemed to be modern interpretations of '40's styles and simply did not look authentically like an old Bette Davis movie, the cinematography by Robert Fraisse was lovely.
The flash forwards to James Garner and Rowlands together in the literal sunset of their lives added much more poignancy and weight to the film than this usual kind of story generates.