Movie Review: The Notebook

Lorena Davila Robles

Movie Review: The Notebook

story and it shows two seasons of their lives together, one in which they meet and their love story

begins and grows and the other as an old couple, facing illnesses of age and the dynamic of the

couple as one of them suffers from Alzheimer.

The movie begins as this couple seats and he reads to her from a notebook that turns out

to be their love story and that she wrote down in order for her to not forget their story and their

love. She even wrote down in that notebook that read that story to her and that she would ‘come

back to him’ and in fact, sometimes she did remembered for a few minutes but some others she

did not.

Allie Nelson and Noah Calhoun are the names of this romantic and passionate couple that

went through a lot of difficulties and hard moments at the beginning of their relationship in order

for their love to succeed. She is a rich and extremely beautiful girl, spending the summer with

her family in Seabrook, North Carolina and seems to have everything in the world, he on the

other side is a local boy with not a lot of money and working at the town’s sawmill. He lives

with his dad at a small and modest house and he seems to have a close relationship with him,

they seem to be happy with the life they have and enjoy the little moments and times they spend

together, he also drives around an old and not very cared truck.

Her parents are not very alike, her mother seems to be shallow and very selfish but his

dad shows a lot of caring and support towards his daughter. The mother later on in the movie

gets an unexpected turn and shows a side of her that could explain a lot of her actions and

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thoughts around the relationship her daughter had with Noah. She explains to her that the man

that works in the same place than Noah was in fact the man she was in love with 25 years ago

but he could not give her the life she wanted and needed and left him and married her mother,

she insists she does love Allie’s father but decides to share her story with her so that she could

understand her better.

Noah meets her at a fair and he loved her when he saw her, it could be love at first sight,

he even hangs on the rungs of a fortune wheel until she accepts going out with him, as the movie

goes on, it shows the growing relationship and love they are developing with some ups and

downs and some other obstacles because of her parents and the fact that they do not approve

their love because he belongs to another social class, after a fun and very intense and passionate

summer, they decide to move with her to New York so she could start her studies in there and

this new break both, Allie and Noah’s heart. Despite that, he decides to write to her every day for

a whole years, 365 letters to Allie with the promise of waiting for her and wanting their love to

continue and last, but her mother never delivers them to her and she never knew about that.

A couple of years later, Noah goes to WWII as he enlisted in the army and she starts

working as an army nurse and it is in the hospital where she meets Lon Hammond who invites

her to go out and a couple of months later they start dating, her parents are thrilled as he is a

handsome and wealthy man and they support the relationship in a greater way than they did with

Noah, so he proposes and she accepts.

Meanwhile, Noah returns from war and buys the old house he and Allie used to go to

during that summer and starts working on restoring it as he promised to her and as she dreamed

of. As the arrangements of the house are ending, a lot of people are interested in buying it and

make great offers for it but he denies all of them and the movie shows a depressed and deeply

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sad Noah, until Allie sees his picture and house at the newspaper and decides to go to Seabrook

and visit him. The climax of the movie takes place in this part of the movie as they see each

other again after a lot of years without knowing from one another and they ‘catch up’ on their

lives, she tells him she is engaged and he talks about war and losing his father, during that

encounter they relive their love and she finds herself torn as she needs to decide between staying

with Lon or the love of her life, she then chooses Noah and marries and forms a family with him,

which members are shown in the movie as they go and visit Allie and Noah at the nursing house

they live in which is the house he build up for her.

Analysis

Allie and Noah share an heterosexual relationship and in they are young and fun youths

when they meet each other at the beginning of the movie, they belong to different social classes

and all the obstacles that represented not only socially, but in their families and environment, it is

important to understand that the movie is taking place back in the 40’s, where gender, race and

social class had a great impact in every social relation and interaction and consequently in whom

people felt attracted to and later in love with.

The movie shows a great difference between Allie’s lifestyle and family traditions, this is

probably the biggest problematic and obstacle of their love in their story; she belongs to the

upper class, people that were born and raised in this environment, focus on and seek in a

relationship have to do with many of the situations that will mark a difference in their future and

adult life such as education and career, also as part of the differences from one social class onto

another, is that, upper – class families exert considerable resources to influence over mate

selection. (Schwartz & Scott, 2013) This can be seen all through the love story of the characters

in the movie as their ‘young’ versions. Her parents were not supportive of the relationship with

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him, and the mother actually makes her own efforts to separate them, by not delivering the letter

he wrote to her and by telling her ‘he is trash’.

Opposite to her social class, Noah belongs to the lower class, he has to work to support himself

and his dad, they live in a modest way and the movie portrays him as a more ‘go with the flow’

youth, he likes to have fun and go to different places for dates, he does not seek for any social

status or material things because he has not grown in that environment, contrary to Allie, that

finds herself in trouble when she needs to decide between choosing real love or social status and

economic stability with Lon. He has worked for many years, and has no problem on doing so, he

buys the house and fixes it all by himself and has no problem with that.

When she goes back to Seabrook to see Noah after the newspaper picture, she spends the

evening with Noah and have dinner with him, they also spend the night together and we see her

cheating on her fiancé, which is calling her to the hotel room and knows there is something

wrong as she does not respond the phone. The morning after spending the night with Noah she

does not know what to do or what decision to take and she leaves the house, leaving Noah

desperate but as she thinks of what she really wants, she decides to tell Lon the truth and the

conflict resolution takes place as she goes back to the house with her luggage and runs to Noah’s

arms letting the audience know that they will be forever together now.

Their dating process is very innocent and genuine; they go out and have ice cream, they

are riding bikes and they also hold traditional gender roles, the man is shown as a strong and

masculine figure, who takes responsibility of work and economic support in the house, and the

woman plays a more submissive role, she is expectant of the guy’s first move, he is the one that

has to ask her out, and then move on into the other stages in a traditional way, courtship, dating,

engagement and marriage.

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The couple’s love is intense, passionate, fun, and long lasting one. It is a romantic love,

they are together because they really want to, and their love wins. Allie and Noah were very

much in love in that summer and wanted to be together but after years of moving on with their

lives they decide to go back to each other and give their love another chance.

The Notebook shows this strong and powerful love even with the aging and illness that

has reached both of them, Duck keeps reading to her every day and has a lot of hope on having a

few minutes with his dear wife and love of his life and never quits her. As they are shown in this

stage of their lives, it is clear to the viewer that their marriage was carried in a monogamy, they

were each other’s only partners and they stayed together for many years. Allie and Noah are each

other’s companionship as they have 80+ years in the scenes at the nursing home and have

managed to stay together; people that manage to last this many years together in a happy and

healthy relationship have to work hard on the values and emotions they share with each other.

The movie also lets the audience know that Allie and Noah were able to have a family

after they got married, their family seems to be a loving and caring one as they go and visit them

regularly and they spend quality time with their father and mother, even though she does not

have the best acknowledgment due to her illness. They must get on well together, they must help

one another in carrying out familial tasks. (Edgell, S, 1972)

Most of all, the movie shows the greatest commitment a couple can make to each other,

this quality can be seen from the very beginning with Noah, as he decides to be with her and

never gives up, he wrote for a whole year to her, he bought the house and fixed it as he promised

and then he stays by her side for all those years, even though she is ill and gives it a chance every

day as he reads to her. She also was committed to him once she decided to be together for good,

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she is aware of the disease and knows that she will get to that point and writes that book, so she

could come back to him and try to remember for a while.

Lasting Marriages

A scientific study was made by Alford Cooper in 1998, he collected data on 576 couples

whose marriage were still going on in perfect conditions after 50 years or more of being together.

The study was held in New York and information was gathered around their different stages of

the relationship and marriage. It went on from the very beginning, courtship, all the way through

the growing old concept and their lives in their current moment. Data was collected from

questionnaires in which the researcher got an overview of their life stories, how they met and got

married and how they led with difficulties and obstacles in order for it to survive.

Quantitative analysis of their responses to the questions showed more than half of the

wives reported being very happily married and almost everyone reported them always though

their marriage would last. Also, 21% of them had at some time contemplated failure of the

marriage but divorce was not one of their options. They also were asked to endorse some

relationship characteristics that had helped them stay together and the three most endorsed were

trust, loving relationship and willingness to compromise.

Additionally, Alzheimer seems to become more popular every year, in fact every 67

seconds, Alzheimer’s takes up residence in another American. Degenerative and incurable, it is

democratic in its reach, more than five million Americans are believed to have it, two-thirds of

them women. (Kleinfield, N. 2018)

The area of most affection for this disease is the mind, people start forgetting simple and

daily duties and activities like turning off the lights and locking the door, but as the disease

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develops, it can also involve mood changes, agitation, social withdrawal and feelings of

confusion, and can even affect or slow a person’s gait. (Belluck, P, 2016)

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References

Schwartz, M.A. & Scott B. M. (2012). Marriages and families: Diversity and change (7th ed.).

Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Kleinfield, N. (2018) Fraying at the Edges. The New York Times.

Retrieved from: [Link]

[Link]

Edgell, S. (1972) Marriage and the concept Companionship. The British Journal of Sociology, 23

(4), 455- 461

Australian Government. (2004) Why marriages last. A discussion of the literature.

Retrieved from: [Link]

Belluck, P (2016) What is Alzheimer’s disease? The New York Times.

Retrieved from: [Link]

Harris, L & Johnson M. (Producers) & Cassavets, N. (Director). (2004, June 25) The Notebook.

South Carolina: New Line Cinema