Beautiful, Beautiful Love Story

Rating: 10/10 (14 March 2006)

Films seldom make me cry, but this one sure did.
This has to be one of the most beautiful love stories I have ever seen on film.
The photography is also quite beautiful with the lakes and the moonlight on the water and the birds flying.
I wish men really did love women this much, but I've never seen any evidence that they do. Nonetheless the characters, and their story grabbed me from the start.
The film opens with an older man, James Garner, reading a story to an older woman, the still beautiful, Gena Rowlands, at a nursing home.
We then move back into the 1940's and meet Noah and Allie, the young couple in the story, who first encounter one another at a carnival. Noah is instantly and completely smitten with Allie, but she takes a bit more convincing regarding him.
Eventually, however, they are both wildly in love with one another - but there are complications. Allie comes from upper crust people, Noah does not.
It seems they are destined to be parted. Allie meets another wonderful young man, Lon, while she does some nursing during WWII, while Noah loses himself in the renovation of a beautiful, old, ruined plantation house. I fell in love with that house almost as much as I did with the characters and the story.
Will they cross one another's paths again, and what might be the consequences if they do? The answer to this plays out in a highly interesting way and ties in with the two older people we meet at the beginning of the film, in an unexpected and heartbreaking way.
Allie is fetchingly played by the very pretty Rachel McAdams, and Noah is portrayed quite sensitively by Ryan Gosling. Ryan Gosling, whom I had never seen before, as far as I know, reminded me quite a lot of Adrian Brody - another fine actor who is excellent at playing sensitive types.
This is an exceptional film of depth and beauty.
10 stars out of 10 stars.