A film travesty of a touching novel

Rating: 3/10 (1 May 2005)

This is one of the rare times I have read, and deeply enjoyed, a novel shortly before seeing a film adaptation (of which I had not been aware until noticing it in the local video shop). In comparison to the novel, this film was such a disappointment. In my opinion, a travesty.
My wife and I agreed (and that is a fairly rare event in our appraisal of films!) that the casting of all the leading roles, without exception (except Noah's father, who didn't even figure in the novel!), was inappropriate and unsympathetic, and that the special qualities that made this short and economically written book so touching and memorable were lost in the film version. Even the house shown in the film was not all evocative of the one Noah had restored. Above all the descriptions and mood created around Noah on the river at sunrise, and the magical trip leading to the 'bird lake', such powerful images in the book, and of his poetry, were played down to a minimal level.
It was as if the task of adaptation to screen was handed to someone who kept only the title and bare outline of the story and then proceeded to create a different, and vastly inferior and less powerful work.
What a shame The Notebook has not enjoyed a truly sympathetic or sensitive adaptation like The Bridges of Madison County, Enchanted April or even the recent Ladies in Lavender. The power of the novel deserved this. Perhaps a European director (or Clint Eastwood) would have done it more justice.
A missed opportunity.