A Beautiful Tearjerker!!!

Rating: 9/10 (11 April 2015)

"The Notebook" qualifies as one of the better Nicholas Sparks' romantic dramas. Ryan Gosling plays the young Noah Calhoun, and James Garner plays the elderly Noah. The love of Noah's life Allie is played by Rachel McAdams during her younger years and Gena Rowlands in her later years. Tragically, Allie suffers from dementia and winds up living in a nursing home. Noah enters the same nursing home so he can be with Allie, and he reads to her every day. She loves the story that he reads to her and constantly wonders how it is going to end, never realizing that Noah is her actual husband. Allie has bouts of memory loss, but Noah never forsakes her. As good as Gosling and McAdams are as the carefree, reckless lovers, Garner and Rowland anchor this amazing love story. Director Nick Cassavetes shifts back and forth between the young lovers and the elderly lovers. The only problem with this otherwise memorable film is that he slips up and reveals the identity of the Garner character too early while the younger Allie is trying to decide if she wants to marry for wealth or for love. This is a genuinely touching romance. Nobody gives a bad performance, and there is nothing trite about it. The last scene is guaranteed to make women cry.