Old Pros Lend Credibility to Young Lovebirds' Magical Hysteria Tour

photo: New Line Productions

For the birds: Gosling and McAdams

Details

The Notebook
Directed by Nick Cassavetes
New Line, opens June 25

Related Content

• Mel Gibson Runs Off At The Mouth On Camera Too!
  December 27, 2011
• Occupy People Fights to Reclaim Rightful Sexy Crown of Ryan Gosling
  November 17, 2011
• Hollywood Whores Audition Notice: Let's Cast It
  October 27, 2011
• Half-Naked Movie Star Hotties, Part 2: NSFW
  September 29, 2011
• "Steve McQueen Was A Fake" Says Movie Costar
  January 11, 2012

More About

• James Garner
• Gena Rowlands
• Ryan Gosling
• Rachel McAdams
• Nicholas Sparks

Like this Story?

Sign up for the NY Bites Newsletter: (Sent out every Wednesday) Bite into the week's top local food news and events, new restaurant openings and closings, foodie news and gossip, and much more for you to chew on.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Big-lunged lovers Allie (Rachel McAdams) and Noah (Ryan Gosling)—pampered Southern debutante and rough-earth mill worker, respectively—are on a freedom spree: lying down in the middle of the main drag late at night; getting aviary without the aid of hallucinogens ("Say I'm a bird!" Allie shrieks at her stud muffin. "Now say you're a bird too!"); daring their teen romance to conquer time, distance, class, family meddlings, World War II (which the film renders as a brief skirmish played out in somebody's backyard), and some inconvenient significant others picked up like lint along the way. The minutes of Allie and Noah's magical hysteria tour are duly recorded in the titular ledger-cum–framing device, these days in the possession of a kindly codger named Duke (James Garner). He reads from the notebook to the now elderly Allie (the director's mom, Gena Rowlands), who's sadly befogged by an Alzheimer's-like illness. Amid the sticky-sweet swamp of Jeremy Leven's script (adapted from Nicholas Sparks's novel), Rowlands and Garner emerge spotless and beatific, lending a magnanimous credibility to their scenes together. These two old pros slice cleanly through the thicket of sap-weeping dialogue and contrivance, locating the terror and desolation wrought by the cruel betrayals of a failing mind.