Ryan Gosling's second best

Rating: 10/10 (27 April 2019)

The Notebook to me is the second best romance film of all time beaten out only by Ryan Gosling's 2016 masterpiece La La Land. The Notebook is sweet, romantic, and is a story within a story. The external plot of Duke in the nursing home is sweet and it allows you to sympathize with older couples as well as people who suffer from dementia. The beginning of the story is nice and Ryan does a beautiful job bringing emotion to Noah. Rachel McAdams also pulls off a convincing Allie that goes through a lot of character development. Noah spends the whole movie infatuated with Allie and it works. Allie however has the more interesting arc as her character starts as a prim rich girl who moves into a radical, fun loving, passionate, risky girl for the time period. She then is forced to go back to her roots only to end up back in his arms. The whole movie is filled to the brink with iconic and beautiful scenes that are constructed specifically to make your heart melt. Its ups are high and its lows are way down low but I think that that just adds to the experience.