I am certain this will become part of our permanent collection. The Notebook Year: 2004 Rating: 9+ Genres: Drama, Romance Director: Nick Cassavetes Cast: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands, James Garner, Sam. My wife and I don't always share the same perspective on movies, but we agreed on this one. The story is compelling from the opening credits to the closing credits. The scenes during the opening credits is absolutely breathtaking. Technically, this movie is exceptional, too. All of the actors turn in engrossing and compelling performances. The characters are very human and very likable. ![]() I am not that cynical about the emotional ties that bind us and I was thoroughly taken in by the story. If you are cynical at all about romance, timeless love and dedication to another person, you may find yourself rolling your eyes a bit. Sure, the core is the "Romeo and Juilet" theme, but the way is plays out and the exceptional charisma that the actors bring to the screen make it feel fresh and not entirely predictable. Unlike "Fried Green Tomatoes", this focuses on young love as it grows and endures through wars and parental dissent. It is structurally very similar to "Fried Green Tomatoes", which is also one of my all time favorite movies. The movie moves between present-day and the 1940s. That choice, as well as the contemporary sound and a gentle updating of the time periods, makes “The Notebook” aesthetically very current and fresh.This story plays out as Duke, played by James Garner, reads a story about two young people in the 1940s who fall in love and endure life. Once we’re settled comfortably into the theatrical device, it becomes an underlying expression of the universality of this specific work. That song, “I Wanna Go Back,” is so poignant, and also so restrained, that it should be studied carefully for the way Michaelson differentiates sentiment and sentimentality, a quality this entire show excels at.Īnd kudos to Greif and Williams for the cross-racial casting choices even with the same character at different ages. How can she sing about her confusion when anything she’d sing would be too articulate to convey confusion? The brilliant choice: have her younger selves sing it for her: “Is it time for dinner/ Is it time for forever/ I didn’t know the last time I’d leave the house/ Was the last time I’d leave the house.” ![]() But take, for example, the challenge of a character with Alzheimer’s, played with wondrous exactitude by Plunkett, in a romantic musical. There are so many extraordinarily smart choices here that I can’t even list them. Taking this time-spanning romance of a love that overcomes barriers of class differences, parental resistance, long-term separation, competing relationships, and even severe dementia, and setting it all to music on a big stage certainly runs the risk of going really sappy, really fast. The younger performers then play that history out, with the differently aged versions of the characters often onstage simultaneously. The nursing home setting forms the frame, with Noah reading to Alzheimer’s patient Allie every day from the titular notebook that tells their own story, hoping for flashes that Allie remembers. Running time: 2 hours and 10 minutes, with one intermissionįor the unfamiliar, “The Notebook” tells the story of Allie and Noah, each played here by three different performers to represent the characters - as the teenagers Younger Allie and Younger Noah (Jordan Tyson and John Cardoza) in their late 20s as Middle Allie and Middle Noah (Joy Woods and Ryan Vasquez) and as Older Allie and Older Noah, elderly inhabitants of a nursing home (Maryann Plunkett and, at opening night, Jerome Harmann-Hardeman understudying for John Beasley). Where: The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 E.
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