The Sparks Oeuvre: The Notebook (movie)

 

Tagline: Behind every great love is a great story. 

IMDb description: A poor yet passionate young man falls in love with a rich young woman, giving her a sense of freedom, but they are soon separated because of social differences. 

Roger Ebert review: three and a half stars

Male protagonist: Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling, young; James Garner, old)

Female protagonist: Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams, young; Gena Rowlands, old)

Star supporting cast: Pulitzer Prize Winner Sam frickin' Shephard as Noah's dad, Joan Allen as Allie's mom

Background: This was Sparks' first novel, but his third to be adapted to a film. However, according to his commentary in the DVD extras, the film rights were sold before the film was even finished. There were various directors and actors attached (Spielberg, Cruise) but for whatever reasons nothing was ever a go and it ended up being the third film adaptation. Whatever those reasons were seem to have worked out just fine, as the film was a smash and is generally seen as the quintessential Sparks movie. 

If I had read the book first, well before it became a movie, I likely would have been pretty pleased with the adaptation. It stays pretty true to the story and characters, but adds a lot more to the beginning of the story. In the book, Noah and Allie's summer romance takes up about 2-3 pages. The movie, though, spends almost half of the movie on the summer romance. We see them meet, dance in the street, ride bikes together, meet parents. We experience the passion and sometimes volatility of their love. They fight and don't always agree, but they always make up because they truly love each other. 

This extra time with Allie and Noah is pivotal to understanding their relationship. We've seen them fight and laugh and get frustrated with each other. Most notably in their break up at the end of summer, when they go from declarations of love to crying to screaming to apologizing to leaving. When they have reunited, and Allie must choose between Noah and her fiance, Lon, she's given the straight truth by Noah - sometimes they'll fight and he'll tell her when she's being a pain in the ass but they'll work on it because they love each other. 

I used to think their fighting was a bit much. However, I watched the film with the director Nick Cassavetes commentary and it changed my perspective. He said he made Allie and Noah fight and yell in the film because, being Greek, he felt that was normal in relationships (and then said that perhaps those from colder ancestries maybe felt different and I felt that as a person with Danish ancestry haha). Anyway, Cassavetes made great choices with the film that really set it apart and I think he was perfect for it. I especially liked his stance on Lon - that if Allie had met him first he likely would have been her one true love, but it was really a matter of timing not him being a bad person. James Marsden plays Lon so perfectly. 

The film holds up really well after all these years, I think because of the great actors involved and a director who knew exactly what he wanted. It feels the most grandiose and epic and passionate of the Sparks films (to this point) and I recommend it. 

The Sparks Oeuvre: The Notebook (book)

Well, I've made it to THE Nicholas Sparks book--The Notebook.  It was Sparks' first published novel, arriving in 1996 and becoming an immediate bestseller. It's the standard that all Nicholas Sparks novels (and movies) are compared to. Since I'm reading in order of the films being released, I'm reading this third and it's interesting to read this knowing what comes after. 

The Notebook is about love. First love, reunited love, and forever love. Noah and Allie meet one summer when her wealthy family is summering in his town. They quickly fall in love, but get separated due to class, miscommunication, WWII, and just time. Fourteen years later, Allie is engaged and, when she sees a photo of Noah in the paper with a home he refinished, impulsively decides she needs to see him. Despite being engaged, she and still has feelings. So does Noah. Their young, first love is the real deal and Allie has to make a choice between her fiance, Lon, and Noah. The story then goes back to the present, with Noah reading the story to Allie from a notebook because she has Alzheimer's and reading to her is his daily task. Of course Alzheimer's is degenerative and memories don't come back, but this is a story about love and how it can create miracles. For brief moments Noah will get Allie back. But Noah is also old and his body failing, and the two share their final(?) moments together laying next to each other. 

Sparks is able to fit in all the stages of love by skimming over over Allie and Noah falling in love (seriously, it's like 2-3 pages) and spending the bulk of the story on their reunion. This mostly works, and probably is helped because I have the movie in my mind while reading and it spends a lot more time on the falling. But he nicely works in background details through their conversation and inner thoughts. He then spends the last quarter or so of the book with older Noah and Allie. They married and had kids and were happy, until she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and eventually had to be placed in a care center. They're past the passionate, reunited love stage of their relationship that dominated most of the book and are in caretaker mode. It's no less full of love though, as it's Noah's love for Allie that keeps both of them going. She wrote out their love story before her memory was completely gone and asked him to read it to her. 

It has become clear that Sparks has a few storytelling devices he likes to use. First, he loves to start a story in the present day and then spend the book having a character(s) look back on the past and their relationship. Theresa does it with her and Garrett's story, Landon with his and Jamie's story, and now Noah does it with his and Allie's story. However, with The Notebook, the device actually feels integral to the story. Noah is reading his and Allie's love story because she is suffering from Alzheimer's and actually can't remember their love story. This is inspired. The other books use the device as a crutch, either to lend some mystery to what happened or just because he wanted to set a story in the 50s. 

I don't think the fourteen years between their reunion works. I get that WWII probably hindered Allie's dating life a little, but it seems fairly unrealistic that a woman of her class and wealth would still be unmarried at 29 in the late 1940s. Noah, as a man in a world that catered to men (especially in the post-WWII America) could absolutely still be single at 31; he wouldn't need a wife to enjoy or participate in society the way Allie would need a husband. 

In this first novel, Sparks really sets a tone for what kind of stories he wants to tell. He hits all the best marks that have become his calling card. There's a reason why you never forget your first.