Touching 'Notebook' overcomes flaws to satisfy romance fans in need of a good cry

If there was anything that John Cassavetes (the father of American independent film) hated, it was a gushy Hollywood romance. So it's jarring to find that "The Notebook," which co-stars his widow, Gena Rowlands, and was directed by his son, Nick, is precisely this kind of movie.

MOVIE REVIEW

THE NOTEBOOK

DIRECTOR: Nick Cassavetes

CAST: Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Gena Rowlands, James Garner

RUNNING TIME: 124 minutes

RATING: PG-13 for some sexuality

WHERE: Bella Bottega 11, Cinema 17, Everett 9, Factoria, Galleria 11, Grand Cinemas, Guild 45th, Issaquah 9, Kirkland Parkplace 6, Marysville Cinema 14, Meridian 16, Monroe 12, Mountlake 9, Parkway Plaza 12, Renton Village, South Hill Mall, Woodinville 12

GRADE: B-

And beyond the oddity of its pedigree, the film, which opened the just-completed Seattle International Film Festival and is back for a regular run, doesn't completely work on its own terms, mainly because its romantic casting just doesn't spark: It doesn't make us fall in love with its lovers.

Still, the movie has some good things going for it, and it represents, in a completely uncynical form, a genre that has been so absent from American cinema for so long that a large, loved-starved audience is out there that's sure to have a weepy good time with it.

Based on a bestseller by Nicholas Sparks ("Message in a Bottle," "A Walk To Remember"), it's the story of Allie (Rachel McAdams), a North Carolina princess, and Noah (Ryan Gosling), a boy from the wrong side of the tracks with a worshipful, all-consuming devotion for her.

Their story is told in flashback as it's read in installments from a personal memoir or diary, the "notebook" of the title, by an elderly man (James Garner) to an elderly woman (Rowlands) suffering from acute Alzheimer's dementia in a nursing home.

It's your basic Hollywood boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl formula, but told on an epic scale, with the bulk of the obstacles created by Allie's snooty mother (Joan Allen), the class distinctions of the rural South in the 1930s and World War II.

The flaw in the movie may be the casting of Gosling, who is a good-enough actor ("The United States of Leland," "The Believer") but just doesn't have the kind of star power or chemistry with McAdams to anchor this kind of minor-league "Gone With the Wind."

And Gosling's weakness is highlighted by his partner's strength. McAdams ("Mean Girls") displays a passion that rivals Natalie Wood's gut-wrenching constancy in "Splendor in the Grass." In some of her scenes, she's just dynamite, but it's a one-sided equation.

At just over two hours, the film also is too long; most of its twists, such as how its two love stories are linked, are not very surprising; and Cassavetes' direction, intercutting much footage of dreamy pastoral beauty, gets to be heavy-handedly poetic.

Yet, even with these problems, this is a film that's brave enough to look squarely at what can be love's biggest obstacle, old age and the fragility of the human body, and imaginative enough to resolve itself with this harsh reality in a genuinely touching way.

P-I movie critic William Arnold can be reached at 206-448-8185 or williamarnold@seattlepi.com.