Friday, September 7, 2012

The Notebook

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The Notebook is a 2004 romantic drama film directed by Nick Cassavetes, based on 1996 the romance novel on a true story of the same name by an American novelist, Nicholas Sparks. The novel was originally inspired by the story of his wife’s grandparents who had a rare and beautiful relationship, one that withstood the test of time and circumstance for married over sixty years,

The film begins at a modern-day nursing home, an eighty-years-old man named Duke (James Garner) reading a romantic story from his faded, well-worn notebook open in his lap to a fellow patient, Allie Hamilton (Gena Rowlands) and starts telling her the story in 1940.

In Seabrook Island, South Carolina, local twenty-three years-old country boy, Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) is smitten with seventeen-years-old heiress, Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams) after seeing her for the first time at a carnival and they share an idyllic summer love affair. Unfortunately, their relationship is disapproval by Allie's parents because of Noah's unwealthy family. The two break up when Allie's family returning home to Charleston.

Fourteen years later, Noah returned home from World War II, restoring a plantation home to its former glory and he is haunted by memories of Allie, the girl that he loved like no other. One day, Allie unexpectedly returns to Noah's town to see him once again. She is now engaged to another man, but realizes that the original passion she felt for Noah has not dimmed with the passage of time. However, the obstacles that once ended their previous relationship still remain and the gulf between their worlds is too vast to ignore. With her impending marriage only weeks away, Allie is forced to confront her hopes and dreams for the future, a future that only she can shape.

In the present, Duke asks Allie who she chose. Allie who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and suddenly remembers that "Duke" is Noah and he was reading the story of how they met. She remembers after finding out about her illness, she herself wrote their story in the notebook with instructions for Noah to "read this to me and I'll come back to you".

The next morning, Noah ("Duke") goes to Allie's room to find her lucid again. Allie questions Noah about what will happen to them when she won't be able to remember anything anymore and he reassures her that he will never leave her. She asks him if he thinks their love for each other is strong enough to "take them away together" and he replies that he thinks their love could do anything. After telling each other that they love one another, they both go to sleep in Allie's bed. The next morning, a nurse finds them dead in each others' arms and the last scene shows a flock of birds flying away.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life? 
There to strengthen each other and to be at one with each other 
in silent unspeakable memories. 

Movie Trailer:

       

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