I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie.
Sorry, I'm plagiarizing. The above is actually taken from Roger Ebert's hilarious review of the movie "North", which remains one of my favorite reviews of all time even though I've never seen the film in question. With critical reaction like that, would you?
This film had been praised to me as one of the most romantic ever. Curious to see if anything could top the gold standard set by "Brokeback Mountain" or the Colin Firth version of "Pride and Prejudice", I gave this one a shot. I was aware of the slight plot twist, although careful observers can see the end coming about ten minutes in. **SPOILERS FOLLOW** James Garner and Gena Rowlands portray an elderly couple in an assisted-living facility. He reads to her daily from a notebook describing the love affair of two young people in the 1940's (played in flashback by Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams). The big surprise is that the two couples are the same people at different moments in time. The conceit itself is not irredeemable, even if a bit maudlin and pathetic in the original sense of the word, but it is hindered by the following problems:
1. Our main characters are assholes.
This idea first began to percolate in the scene where Gosling, upset that McAdams' moneyed parents don't want her dating someone poor, breaks off their relationship because it has no long-term potential. This will turn out to be his last sensible act. McAdams responds by following him outside, pushing him and punching his chest with her fists while telling him he can't leave her. This makes her an abuser, and one he would do well to stay away from. After this scene I found it impossible to root for them to end up together. McAdams meets and gets engaged to a handsome, wealthy stockbroker whom she genuinely seems to enjoy. However, she inexplicably abandons him after one night with Gosling, who has painstakingly restored the house where they first made love. His behavior has grown disturbing and creepy, and her decision to stay with him is insensitive and inexcusable. Things apparently don't change over time, either; as the end of the movie shows, the Garner version of the character reads the love story over and over to his wife, who is now stricken with Alzheimer's. She always forgets until the end of the story that it describes the two of them. Then for a few minutes, perhaps an hour, she remembers their love and is affectionate and warm toward Garner, until the dementia returns and she is dragged away screaming to be sedated, terrified by a man she does not remember. This behavior by Garner is sadistic in the extreme and forces an ill person into more misery just so that he can have a few minutes of validation by a woman who once cared for him.
2. The movie is an asshole.
We get no idea of what transpired between the two time periods directly shown to us in the film. The couple's children show up at one point, but we don't know anything about their births or childhoods. It is unrealistic to expect that such intense, giddy feelings would persist throughout a marriage of many decades, but if the film even tried to show us how these feelings have been nurtured throughout the marriage it would up the believability factor. "Away From Her" did a remarkable job of this while dealing with similar themes.
3. The director is an asshole.
Freud would have a field day with the idea of Nick Cassavetes directing his mother Gena Rowlands in a film where she fails to recognize her own children and has a spectacular, uncomfortable breakdown whose shadow looms over the end of the film. Rowlands' acting in this scene is volcanic, chaotic and utterly believable, reminiscent of the work she did for her husband John in far better films than this. My imagination fails when trying to conceive of the on-set atmosphere on this day of shooting. The way that the camera lingers and intrudes on her character's private, embarrassing moments would be slightly unethical if shot by anyone; the fact that it is the work of Rowlands' son is inexcusable.
The notion of this as one of the most romantic films ever is misguided and overlooks the glaring psychological flaws of every character. The aforementioned "Away From Her" is a textbook example of how to treat this material; "The Notebook" is a textbook example of everything one should not do.
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