The Notebook

The Gosling/McAdams piece ended up more mature than I expected, but it didn't connect successfully with the larger structure. Standing alone it could have been worthwhile: without time spent on the older couple, we could have fleshed out and wrapped up the younger romance better. Alternatively, in a longer-form medium or a defter adaptation, it could complement the older romance well. I can see how it could work in the novel, or a longer movie, better movie, or series of movies. It didn't cram well into this 2hr movie. The purpose was confused. It seems like it's just trying to be an ultimate love story, which needs more time than 2hrs, or really skilled decisions. Titanic had 3, and a narrow setting (one voyage). The Notebook would need to narrow its scope or extend its expression. Maybe the novel works.

It came off as striving to be the ultimate love story by its ending, which didn't connect to the rest of the story as far as I'm aware. Was their mutual death supposed to recall some earlier element? If so, I missed it. If not, it's out of scope -- it introduces too much right at the end without connecting to the rest. That's classic poor closure. If the ending would have tied well with the rest, I'd feel much better now, but it felt really disjoint and confusing. The vision suddenly faltered. Maybe it made sense to the adaptor or anyone else who had read the novel. But as a film, it was really disjoint. If I didn't know this was originally a novel, I'd be a little disgusted by those decisions at the end. It would seem like really bad filmmaking. Since I know it's an adaptation, I can understand better, but still call the end bad filmmaking in my opinion.

I also, critically, just didn't feel any connection to the older couple. I think they were poorly cast, and perhaps poorly written and poorly played. This is tragic for the movie. Every piercing thing in the younger narrative was blunted by the older. Further, the older was positively uncomfortable for me. Maybe I'm too crushy and defensive on Gosling, but I genuinely disliked his older incarnation. It didn't feel authentic, and worse, it felt like a mild betrayal.

The younger narrative was more nuanced and challenging than I expected though. It's really bleak and tragic. I'm not sure it's really suitable for teenagers. I certainly wouldn't expect them to understand some of the tragedy, like 7 years falsely believing the other didn't write, and all the innocence lost in that interval. It's kind of devastating. And Allie's final dilemma was bitter. Thankfully her fiancee handled it perfectly (for her sake), but even so, it wouldn't work so well to return to the romance. You forfeited it years ago.