I think in this day and age romantic films are a dying breed, there is a reason we all turn towards the past to get our fix, but when looking over the classics there is one that I still can’t seem to fall in love with. ‘The Notebook’ is a film directed by Nick Cassavetes and starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling as the lead characters. It is most well known for its famous kissing in the rain scene which would later become a well-used trope in future romance films and for some to be one of the greatest love stories.
Now, I love the chemistry between McAdams and Gosling, the actors are fantastic, as is James Marsden in the role of the other man also vying for the female lead. A large portion of the story also takes place in the 1940s south so the film aesthetics used are gorgeous to look at as they really present the viewers with a feeling of nostalgia.
It’s based on the book of the same name by Nicholas Sparks, known for other stories such as ‘A Walk to Remember,’ ‘The Long Ride,’ and ‘Dear John,’ all with their respective film adaptations. While I admire Sparks for the amount of content he has been able to put out, some of his stories can come off as a bit formulaic, though that might be the case when you write so many romances.
For Sparks, even the characters can seem very similar with a sort of enemies-to-lovers type story, two competing personalities that eventually fall in love, and then tragedy is used to somehow pull them apart in the end, usually a disease or death. Once you’ve seen one of his stories, you can start to anticipate these tropes in others and it can all seem too predictable and shallow to stay engaged.
‘The Notebook’ follows the story of Allie (McAdams), a young heiress, who is wooed by a poor worker Noah (Gosling), and how throughout their lives they are torn apart by social standings and peer pressure, but brought together by grand gestures of true love. It is called ‘The Notebook,’ because the love story is being told from a notebook by Noah to his wife, Allie, as she is sick with Alzheimer’s and dementia, so he reads to her their story.
It is a story about how love transcends time and how it persists through sickness and health, yet, the love story depicted, isn’t that great.
There have been many articles complaining about the realism in the love story between the young lovers, how they’d never work out in real life. While it is just a movie, and as such is able to be a little unrealistic when it comes to its depiction of true love, there are scenes that many can see in the film that many can attach to red flags in their own relationships.
For example, the movie is about how these two are brought together and drawn apart over the years, the idea is that their love is so strong that they can’t stay away from each other. But the movie even claims that they don’t have anything in common except that they are crazy about each other.
Now this could be referring to the fact they are from two different social classes and can’t relate to each other, but the film never does anything to explore their own common interests. If you can’t find that commonality there is no foundation and therefore they weren’t experiencing love, they were experiencing lust or just in love with the idea of love.
This is most evident in their ‘meet-cute.’ Noah asks Allie out without ever having a conversation with her. While she is on a date with someone else, while she is enjoying a Ferris wheel ride, he runs up and grabs onto her Ferris wheel cart, holding on tight as it goes up, and threatens that if she doesn’t go out with him, he will do something very bad to himself.
He does this upon first meeting her, not the best start. He gets her to say yes to a date but there is a significant amount of pressure on her if she says no, I feel like people forget how crazy this movie could get.
The meet-cute shares some elements with another famous romance film but there are significant differences that make it work, ‘Titanic’.
Now, to be fair, ‘The Notebook’ isn’t trying to compete with ‘Titanic,’ they are their own romance movies and you can enjoy both. I also know that Jack and Rose aren’t a perfect or realistic relationship either, yet the reason I am bringing them up is because they are films often talked about together. They are both highly-rated romance films, with most fans of the genre holding them in the top two spots of their lists. They both involve an older person reflecting on their past great love life. The story takes place in a historical time period as well as follows a rich girl falling in love with a poor boy against all odds. Many similarities can be drawn from them.
As mentioned before, the movie follows the love story of a rich girl, Rose, and a poor boy, Jack, on the Titanic. They chase after each other and are also pulled apart by social classes alongside familial pressure yet the film establishes the main couple’s connection immediately. While Jack is poor he is well-traveled and he doesn’t let the fact that he is poor affect his self-esteem which helps boost his charisma and charm. He represents a life Rose dreams about, an escape from the rich life she lives in and an opportunity to live freely.
While this does lead her to romanticize Jack’s situation a little too much, it helps that he too romanticizes it by taking his position in life in stride and as he mentions, waking up each day never knowing where the day will take him. Their shared love of freedom and adventure brings them together and it’s what draws them to one another despite their differing social classes. Even as far as the ending having Rose live how Jack would’ve wanted her to, escaping and living her life to the fullest.
When it comes to their first meeting it also blows Noah and Allie out of the water(no pun intended). Both deal with difficult subject matter but while one is threatening the other is more playful and results in the genuine saving of a life. Rose is unhappy with her rich life and it’s not subtextual like it might’ve been with Allie, it is on display as she is about to do something very rash but is what she thinks she needs to do to escape a life with her pushy mother and arrogant fiancée.
Then like a hero waiting in the wings, Jack emerges and he talks her out of it. He doesn’t act like he knows her situation either by saying, ‘You have so much to live for,’ or ‘Think of your family and friends,’ he takes a more sensible approach where he tells her a story on how he knows the waters are gonna be cold and possibly not fast enough to achieve what she wants. He even bravely says that if she goes in, he’ll go after her, so he gets her to kind of think about himself as opposed to her situation, getting her mind off of it. He is also reassuring her that no matter what she does, he’s gonna help her, even if he is just a stranger to her.
In the end, Jack is successful, he saves her and so begins their whirlwind romance. This is a tad more romantic than the meeting shown in ‘The Notebook’ and a relationship with a stronger foundation that also addresses the class difference as Rose makes it clear she is willing to leave the life she lives in order to be with Jack.
As I mentioned before, I don’t think Jack and Rose are perfect either. There are many elements in the film where Jack acts like a manic pixie dream boy, a term used to describe characters who seemed almost too good to be true, they have almost no negative traits of their own and are meant to be used almost as a prop to help boost the protagonist. This is true, especially with the male manic pixie as they are often used as mentors and people who remind the main characters of the joys of life and youth, very similar to Jack Dawson.
It is also strange to compare these two films when they can seem like direct opposites of each other. ‘The Notebook’ follows one relationship over the span of decades, of course, there are going to be more drama and fights as the characters deal with new obstacles. ‘Titanic’, while a very romantic film, takes place over a shorter period of time, who knows how Jack and Rose would have dealt with one another on the mainland. Maybe they would’ve fought more, maybe they’d find they weren’t right for another, maybe they’d be happy but that’s not what the film is about.
At its core, ‘Titanic,’ is ironically about two passing ships in the night, only meant to help each other for a little while, on the other hand ‘The Notebook’ is meant to tell a love story that took years to get to a point where they could be happy. Maybe that’s why it is looked upon so fondly because no other film shows the kind of hard work one puts into a relationship like this one.
I am open to learning to love this film, there are just some scenes I may need to gloss over, but it is really hard to root for a couple that yells at each other all the time, has almost nothing in common, and just keeps leaving each other. Throughout the film you just keep asking, when will they say goodbye for good, deeply knowing they won’t while receiving information telling you that they should.