Film depicting enduring love recalls earlier screen romance
My husband and I recently bought our 15-year-old daughter the DVD of “The Notebook.” Having paid several times the price in rental fees for her and her friends, we felt it was worth the $13.99 investment.
“The Notebook” follows two star-crossed lovers who overcome obstacles, marry, and share their last days in a nursing home.
Allie, played by Rachel McAdams and, in her senior years, by Gena Rowlands, has developed Alzheimer’s disease. Her husband, Noah, portrayed in his golden years by the dependable James Garner, reads daily to her the story of their romance, hoping she’ll remember him and come back to their life together.
In flashback we see their love unfold, the promises made, the parental interference that breaks them apart when Noah goes to war and, finally, their reunion seven years later just weeks before Allie’s marriage to another man.
Throughout, Noah, played as a young man by the adorable Ryan Gosling, remains a stalwart, stand-up guy. Even when the lovers are separated, and it seems to Noah that Allie has left their dreams behind, he keeps his love for her alive, buying and rebuilding the house they fantasized about as teenagers in love.
Knowing she wanted to be an artist, he creates a special artist’s room for Allie. And then, in the twilight of their lives, even as Allie slips deeper and deeper into Alzheimer’s, Noah moves to the nursing home with her, choosing to remain by her side.
It would be devastating if not for Allie’s brief moments of remembering Noah and their life together, moments that fuel Noah’s hope and purpose.
I suppose “The Notebook,” which came out in 2004, is this generation’s “Love Story.”
As a teenager, I sat watching in a darkened theater as preppie Oliver Barrett IV marries wrong-side-of-the-tracks Jennie Cavillery against his father’s wishes, losing his trust fund.
I rooted for Jennie and Oliver as they struggled to make ends meet while building a future together. And I sobbed as Jennie died, their love story cut tragically short. Throughout, Oliver remains by Jennie’s side, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until they are parted by death.
In our youth and innocence, we girls swore we would marry a man like Oliver – noble, constant, loving. Of course, looking back now almost 40 years, I would say my girlfriends and I were naive.
Love as pure and steadfast as Jennie and Oliver’s, Noah and Allie’s is hard to find and not any easier to sustain. I tell my daughter to take her time choosing a boyfriend – to look for strong, moral character, a good heart and a best friend. I’m not sure she hears any of it.
In “The Notebook,” Noah enters his wife’s bedroom at the nursing home. She remembers him and they cuddle together as they fall asleep. The next morning the nurse discovers that both have died in their sleep, their bodies entwined in eternity.
At our house there’s lots of teenage sobbing as the film ends. Sometimes I kid them about it. Other times I simply continue about my business. But as they start the DVD for what must be the 100th time, I don’t stop them and tell them to find something else to do.
After all, if “The Notebook” can teach my daughter about the power of constancy and true love, as well as the qualities of the soulmate with whom she should grow, then our $13.99 investment will yield a lifetime of happy returns.
