The Notebook (film)

The Notebook is a 2004 romantic film directed by Nick Cassavetes, based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as a young couple who fall in love during the early 1940s. Their story is narrated from the present day by an elderly man played by James Garner, telling the tale to a fellow nursing home resident, played by Gena Rowlands, the director's mother.

Story:

The film opens with an elderly man reading out of a notebook to an elderly woman about a story between two young lovers, Allie and Noah. The story dates back to the summer of 1940 in Seabrook, South Carolina. Allie Hamilton is a girl from a wealthy family spending summer in Seabrook. At a carnival, Allie meets Noah Calhoun, a local boy who works at the lumber mill. Over the summer, their romance blooms and they spend every moment together.

Allie and Noah break up, but immediately regret the decision. Allie's family leaves Seabrook the next day and Noah, devastated, writes her one letter every day for a year which her mother hides. After Allie doesn't reply to him, Noah moves to Atlanta. After the attacks on Pearl Harbor, he enlists in the army for World War II while Allie attends college.

While in college, Allie volunteers as a nurse's aide for wounded soldiers and meets the injured Lon Hammond, Jr. — a young man who is handsome, charming, and from a wealthy family. To the joy of Allie's parents, they become engaged; meanwhile, Noah returns home. Noah's father greets him and informs Noah that he is selling his current house so that Noah can purchase the old Windsor Plantation (the old abandoned house that Noah promised he would restore to Allie so that they could live there together). While visiting Charleston, South Carolina to present to the State his building plans for his new house, Noah sees Allie walking down the street. Noah, who is on a bus at the time, hops off the bus immediately and pursues Allie. He sees her go into a restaurant and smiles when he sees her, but he then witnesses Allie and Lon kissing. Devastated, Noah restores the old house, believing that if he keeps his promise to her, Allie will come back. Once he is finished, Noah tries to sell it, but cannot part with it.

In the present, it is evident that the elderly woman is Allie and the storyteller is her husband. She does not recognize their family due to her deteriorating dementia, and they beg their father to come home with them while he insists on staying with his wife.

The film switches back to 1947. While trying on her wedding dress amongst family and friends, Allie reads about Noah's house in the paper and faints. Upon some deep thinking, she decides to visit him. When she arrives at Noah's estate, she seems very nervous and attempts to leave by driving her car in reverse. She crashes into a wooden gate and her car stops working. Noah walks over to her and invites her to the house. They talk and have dinner and Allie makes it clear that she's getting married. They reminisce on their memories together, and, when it is time for Allie to leave, Noah asks Allie to come back tomorrow for a surprise. The next day, Noah takes Allie out on the lake in a canoe to a picturesque setting amongst geese and they begin to talk. Allie asks Noah why the geese are there, but Noah says he doesn't know and that "they'll go back where they came from," perhaps suggesting that Allie is supposed to come back to him. Before the conversation can end, it starts to rain and Noah and Allie laugh and she screams as if she has been liberated. On the way back after reaching port, Allie gets upset and demands to know why Noah never wrote to her. Noah tells her he wrote to her every day for one year. He says to her that "it wasn't over, it still isn't over." He pulls her face to his and passionately kisses her before they proceed to the house and make love. After two days of passion, Allie’s mother appears while Noah is out and says that Lon has followed her to Seabrook. Allie's mother takes Allie for a drive to the lumberyard. She explains how she too once had a summer romance, and that she still watches her ex-lover sometimes. They drive back to Noah's house, and he is sitting on the porch. She hands her daughter the bundle of 365 letters that Noah had written, saying that she hopes Allie makes the right choice. She drives away and Allie goes to sit on the porch with Noah. She explains how Lon is in town and how the past few days had been wonderful, but very irresponsible. Noah is furious, accusing her of only loving Lon for his money, and says that if she leaves, he will hate her forever. She storms toward her car, and Noah yells after her that she's bored with her life, and if she wasn't she wouldn't have come. She turns around and yells back that they wouldn't last because it had only been 3 days and they were already arguing. He begs her to stay with him, saying that he knows they fight and is willing to work it out every day if that's what it takes. He says that he's not afraid to hurt her feelings because that's what they do; they fight and make up. He tells her that if she really wants to be with Lon, then she should go, because he lost her once and could do it again. Confused, Allie drives off.

Distraught, Allie stops her car, reads Noah's goodbye letter, and then drives to the hotel where Lon is staying. Lon says that he has three choices: Kill Noah, beat him, or leave Allie. He says that none of them let him keep her, and that he loves her. She says she loves him too, but that she feels like two different people when she's with Lon and when she's with Noah. She also says that she knows she should be with him (Lon) implying that she's going to stay with him. However, switching back to Noah's house where he's napping on the bed with a blanket around him, he hears a noise from a car outside. Getting up he sees it is in fact, Allie, who appears to have left Lon and come back to him. He goes outside where Allie drops her suitcases and runs into his arms where he wraps the blanket around her to pulling her in close then they kiss passionately.

Upon switching back to the present, Allie realizes that she and Noah are the people in the book. She asks how long she has before she loses memory of everything again. They dance and she relapses. She has to get a shot from the nurse as she believes that Noah is an intruder. Noah gets upset and cries. When he goes to sleep, he looks at the books and we find out that Allie herself wrote the book with this message written on the front: "Read this to me, and I'll come back to you every time."

The next morning the nurse finds Noah in a critical condition. He is saved from his heart attack and sneaks into Allie's room at night. She is able to remember Noah and asks him whether their love is strong enough to make miracles and take them away together. Noah says that their love can do whatever they want it to do. In the morning, they are both found dead, sleeping peacefully while holding hands. The film closes with a flock of birds flying over a lake.