The Sleeper of the Year!

Rating: Null/10 (17 June 2004)

Ever since May 27th, I've been sitting on a wonderful little secret that you're going to be seeing and hearing an awful lot about this summer -and possibly, next February at Oscar-time. Like the "Secret Love" that Doris Day once sang about in Calamity Jane, which "grew impatient to be free," my secret's become progressively harder to keep mum about as well, so today, three weeks later, the secret gets spilled. My 'secret' concerns one of the best films I've seen in a very, very long time, one which has me almost giddy at anticipating how the rest of the country will react to it, once it opens nationally on Friday June 25th. The wonderful film that has me all abuzz is the screen version of Nicholas Sparks' national best-seller, The Notebook, directed with immeasurable style and precision -and tons of heart and honesty- by Nick Cassavetes. It says here that it'll be the 'sleeper' of the year. Run, don't walk to see this movie as soon as you can, because the treat that awaits you in this well-crafted and beautifully shot combination of drama, humor and romance, is something that'll have you buzzing for a long time afterwards.
On a very hot and humid night in South Beach, not far from all the BCBG people flitting about Lincoln Road, I had the chance to see for myself what the folks from New Line could cobble together from a hugely popular novel and a most remarkable cast, with principals like Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner, Gena Rowlands, Joan Allen and Sam Shepard. It's no exaggeration to say that the packed theatre in South Beach that night was absolutely BUZZING like a swarm of bees, during and after the movie, because of the quality of the film and the amazing individual performances turned in. This jibed perfectly with what I'd read about the film's showings in Seattle, during their film festival, and more recently, at Show Canada.
Over the past 15 years or so, I've gone to dozens and dozens of advanced screenings for films that were all over the lot: foreign & domestic, comedy & drama, usually more tricks than treats. I've seen Jessica Lange & Tommy Lee Jones create screen magic in Blue Sky, which earned Lange a much-overdue Oscar, though truth be told, I think she's still owed a few more. I've seen now-beloved films that were once thought to be quite iffy or long-shots, like Bull Durham or Field of Dreams, which have long since become so very much more than just films.
But, of course, there were also the times when I pressed my luck one time too many, like in 1996, when I walked into a darkened theatre with high hopes for Ed Burns' sophmore effort, She's The One, his follow-up to Brothers McMullen. Well, nobody hits a home run with every at bat. The elements that had seemed so fresh and appealing about his first effort, which struck such a chord with critics and film-goers alike, now seemed somewhat forced and off-kilter, despite how much I wanted to like it. (Or, maybe it's just my general dislike for Cameron Diaz.) Another case of curiosity killing the cat came in 199X, when I found myself literally stuck in the middle of a row at a cramped shoe-box of a theatre in Northwest D.C., trapped by chattering and immovable yentas at The Story of Us, arguably, one of the biggest wastes of talent on film in the past 30 years, with Pfeiffer and Willis left to fend for themselves. I felt like I'd been taken hostage.
Here's why I mention these hits-and-misses of the recent past: the last advanced screening I attended that came even close to blowing the hinges off the theatre doors like what I witnessed with The Notebook in South Beach was The Lion King, and much of that reaction was because the audience had no built-in expectation, other than another animated film from Disney. Who knew that The Lion King would change the industry forever? IF the word-of-mouth for The Notebook is anything at all like what I expect, based on my own extensive conversations with other audience members, there's really no limit to how HUGE this film will go theatrically, and later on DVD & Video.
There are 1,001 things about this film that compel me to STRONGLY RECOMMEND it to you, but I want to highlight just a few for reasons that will be self-evident once you've seen the film.
1.) In the central role of Noah Calhoun, Ryan Gosling shows exactly why he's one of the most talked-about young actors in the business today, showing a range of honest enthusiasm, intensity and self-confidence that is remarkable -and completely believable. To me, Gosling's characterization seems like a wonderful combination of the unique qualities we've always loved about three of the biggest film stars in history: Jimmy Stewart, Paul Newman and Gary Cooper. Gosling's Noah, a young man unafraid to dream big dreams and the hard-work required to make them come true, recalled for me yet another film character who was bound and determined to not just get the woman and the building of his dreams, but to do so on his own terms: Gary Cooper's determined Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, whose desire for both Patricia Neal and his dream of a skyscraper was palpable, and made that 1949 film so memorable.
Here, of course, Gosling isn't burdened with speaking in the stilted Ayn Rand-penned prose of Objectivism, and imbues Noah with the kind of gentle humor and thoughtfulness that makes him ideal as a friend to men, as well as a love interest to women.
2.) In the end, I think the individual most responsible for your seeing this film a second time this summer will be obvious to you within the first fifteen minutes: Rachel McAdams. As Orson Welles once so-famously said off-camera in introducing one of his young stars during the closing credits of Citizen Kane, "I'll repeat that name so you don't forget it:" Rachel McAdams. Rachel McAdams, well, she is, to use that old Hollywood clichÃ©, nothing less than a revelation in the role of Allie. It isn't just because she's 100% believable from the first moment she steps before the camera, though she is.
It isn't just because she looks like a vision of loveliness in the 1940's period costumes, as if she's stepped right out of our collective memories, though she is and does. No, more than any other individual quality that she brings to this wonderful film, Rachel McAdams brings that intangible quality known as "IT," which allows some actors to take the audience into their embrace before they even know what's hit them -and never lets them go. And so it is here.
As was the case in seeing Ashley Judd in 1993's Ruby in Paradise, Reese Witherspoon in 1991's The Man in the Moon, and more recently, Scarlett Johansson in 2001's An American Rhapsody, Rachel McAdams is so amazing in her performance, that long before the film is over, you find yourself slack-jawed at the realization that she's not already one of our A-list actresses, sub-Thirty division, since from the moment you see her, you are completely invested in her. There is never a moment when she's on screen that you aren't completely aware of her and rooting for her to make the right choices in her life. Everything about her performance and personality absolutely screams "Movie Star."
Rachel McAdams is clearly another actor who's been working very hard for years so that some newspaper or magazine writer could now, quite foolishly, suddenly call her an "overnight sensation." However long it's taken, though, her moment to shine has clearly arrived, because in The Notebook, Rachel McAdams absolutely radiates charm, passion and intensity. You simply can't help loving her.
3.) Like me, you've all not only had the experience of attending high school, but since Fast Times at Ridgemont High came out and broke the mold, also had to endure lots and lots of bad films and TV shows about high school kids, many more notable for their soundtracks than the performances or story. One of the very best things about this film is something that's been completely ignored in the trade reviews I've read so far, but which struck me almost immediately as I left the theatre, prepared to do battle with the oppressive heat & humidity of South Florida. That is, the extent to which the people portrayed seem convincing and completely believable to their time and place, in large part, due to the wonderfully striking outfits they wear. More to the point, no character in the film is unduly precocious or prescient about the future and the events to come, in either their own lives or the wider world, a narrative shorthand I've always found to be the worst kind of foreshadowing on the BIG SCREEN. (If you've got a big screen, fill it with a compelling story full of characters we care about!) You know, kids who see the future so clearly that they muse out loud at the dinner table over mashed potatoes and meatloaf about what the Japanese move into Manchuria augers, or what the German annexation of the Sudetenland might bring forth. Meanwhile, the so-called adults are left to mutter lines like, "Well, whatever happens next, it won't be good." Then, as has been seen a million times before, CUE the shot of a plane dropping a bomb over The Arizona at Pearl Harbor...
Thankfully, that's missing here, and instead, under Cassavetes' calm hand, we get nuance, complexity and honest exploration of heartfelt thoughts and feelings -and wavering doubts. Despite the fact that we know we're watching a film that at its core must be romantic, Cassavetes never condescends to the audience by making things easy for the characters, which is why their conflicts and choices seem so very much more intense and palpable than is true with films where everyone's acting in the shallow end of the pool. Special kudos to James Marsden on that score, for making his character of Lon seem so much more fully-evolved than the one-dimensional caricature he'd be in the hands of many other actors. His character must ring true in order for Allie's choice to be seen as a real one, and not one made by default. James Marsden delivers the goods!
Based on what I've seen and heard for myself, this film has the potential to be a license to print REAL MONEY!!! Personally, I'd invest lots of real money to have some participation points on this film, because, quite honestly, it looks and performs exactly like a perennial, the sort of film that CBS-TV -that's your cue, Les Moonves!- could and should run on the Sunday night after Thanksgiving for the indefinite future, becoming what the Wizard of Oz used to be, and more recently, what A Wonderful Life has been for NBC-TV, once they made it exclusive to the Peacock network. The reps I spied at the theatre, presumably from New Line, were trying their best to play it cool, but clearly they know they have a potential juggernaut here because days later, in an interview with Martin Grove of The Hollywood Reporter, producer Mark Johnson spilled the beans: "... I have to say that in testing it the men who have seen this movie rate it as highly as the women do. This is the highest testing movie I have ever had -- and that includes 'Rain Man,' 'Good Morning Vietnam' and 'The Rookie."
I honestly believe that within the next two years, at least 5% of the country, and, perhaps 35% of all American women aged 15-45, will have at least one copy, DVD or videotape, of "The Notebook" in their entertainment center. That's how wonderful this film is.
Believe me, you will all be believers by the end of the summer
Enjoy!