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The Notebook (2004)
Brand | Warner Home Video |
Theme | Book |
Sheet Size | 5-x-8-inch inches |
Special Feature | Soft cover |
Number of Items | 1 |
Binding | DVD |
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From the manufacturer
Behind Every Great Love is a Great Story
The Notebook tells the tale of local mill worker, Noah Calhoun, and vacationing rich girl, Allie Hamilton. The pair meet one summer in South Carolina and fall desperately in love. Allie’s parents don’t approve of the relationship because of the couple’s social differences, and they work to separate the two. When Noah leaves to serve in World War II it seems to mark the end of the love affair, and eventually Allie becomes involved with another man. But when Noah returns to the small town of Seabrook years later, on the eve of Allie's marriage, it soon becomes clear that their romance is anything but over.
Trivia
Gena Rowlands, who plays the elderly Allie Hamilton, is director Nick Cassavetes’ mother.
Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams were both born in the same hospital in London, Ontario, Canada.
For two months before filming began, Ryan Gosling lived in Charleston, South Carolina, rowed the Ashley River every morning and built furniture in the afternoons.
Entertainment Weekly has credited Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams for the Best Movie Kiss of All Time.
A Memorable Romance
- Based on the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks
- Directed by Nick Cassavetes
- More than two hours of heartfelt, romantic drama
- Bonus material includes deleted scenes, commentaries and more
- Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Meet the Cast
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Young Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams)From a wealthy, privileged background, Allie is spending the summer in Seabrook, South Carolina. There, she meets and falls in love with local boy Noah Calhoun. |
Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling)A young and carefree local, Noah has a low-paying job at the town’s lumberyard. When he meets Allie one evening at a carnival, he’s immediately smitten. |
Allie Hamilton (Gena Rowlands)Now living in a senior care facility, the elderly Allie is suffering from senile dementia and memory loss. She is visited every day by a co-resident, who reads to her. |
Duke (James Garner)A resident at the same facility where Ms. Hamilton resides, Duke gets permission to read to the elderly woman. The story he shares is always the same. |
Product Description
Product Description
Notebook, The (DVD) (WS) In Seabrook, North Carolina in the 1940s, teenaged debutante Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams) and local boy Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) spend one passionate, carefree summer together and deeply in love. But when the summer ends, war and duty separate the young couple. Today, an elderly man (James Garner) visits a nursing home to read from his notebook to a woman (Gena Rowlands) whose memory is fading. As he spins a tale of two young lovers with their whole lives before them, his beloved Allie relives a long-ago passion that has never died, an unbreakable bond between two ordinary people rendered extraordinary by the strength, power and beauty of true love.
Amazon.com
When you consider that old-fashioned tearjerkers are an endangered species in Hollywood, a movie like The Notebook can be embraced without apology. Yes, it's syrupy sweet and clogged with clichés, and one can only marvel at the irony of Nick Cassavetes directing a weeper that his late father John--whose own films were devoid of saccharine sentiment--would have sneered at. Still, this touchingly impassioned and great-looking adaptation of the popular Nicholas Sparks novel has much to recommend, including appealing young costars (Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams) and appealing old costars (James Garner and Gena Rowlands, the director's mother) playing the same loving couple in (respectively) early 1940s and present-day North Carolina. He was poor, she was rich, and you can guess the rest; decades later, he's unabashedly devoted, and she's drifting into the memory-loss of senile dementia. How their love endured is the story preserved in the titular notebook that he reads to her in their twilight years. The movie's open to ridicule, but as a delicate tearjerker it works just fine. Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember were also based on Sparks novels, suggesting a triple-feature that hopeless romantics will cherish. --Jeff Shannon
Review
A lovely surprise. Ripe with feeling and lush with physical beauty, it's a love story that swings confidently between age and youth… --Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern
Set Contains:
The Platinum Series DVD includes a generous selection of bonus features including four making-of featurettes and Rachel McAdams' original screen test. The 11-1/2 minute "All in the Family" featurette examines director Nick Cassavetes' directing style and edgy sensibility and features commentary by Nick Cassavetes as well as lots of interview footage from a host of cast members including Sam Shepard, Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner, and Gena Rowlands. "Nicholas Sparks: A Simple Story, Well Told" is a 6-1/2 minute look at the unassuming author and his literary success and "Southern Exposure" details the processes of locating The Notebook in Southern Carolina and re-creating a bygone era. "Casting Ryan and Rachel" marvels at the instant chemistry present between Ryan Gosling and McAdams. Twelve deleted and alternate scenes (totaling 28-1/2 minutes) are offered with great optional commentary by editor Alan Heim about the collaborative and sometimes difficult process of editing as well as the reasoning behind specific cuts. Nick Cassavetes' director commentary offers insight into his commitment to creating a realistic world in which idealistic love flourishes as well as his down-to-earth attitude as a director. Novelist Nicholas Sparks' commentary offers a wealth of information about the writing of the book, the spirit of the story, and the openness to change resulting from his perception of movies and novels as distinct art forms.. --Tami Horiuchi
Product details
- Aspect Ratio : 2.35:1
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- MPAA rating : PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
- Product Dimensions : 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 0.8 ounces
- Item model number : 7497
- Director : Nick Cassavetes
- Media Format : NTSC, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Subtitled, AC-3, Dolby, Multiple Formats, Color
- Run time : 2 hours and 4 minutes
- Release date : January 8, 2008
- Actors : James Garner, Gena Rowlands, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Anthony-Michael Q. Thomas
- Subtitles: : English, Spanish
- Language : English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Unqualified
- Studio : WarnerBrothers
- ASIN : B000683VI4
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #50,416 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #2,016 in Romance (Movies & TV)
- #8,480 in Drama DVDs
- Customer Reviews:
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Top reviews from the United States
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The Notebook's rich deeply meaningful romance is a true story, that of author Nicholas Sparks' wife's grandparents. The year after their death, Sparks felt he needed to tell the simple story of this couple's enduring affection despite aging. The grandparents were not able to attend the Sparks' wedding day due to frailty.
The next morning, the Sparks redressed in Tuxedo and Wedding gown, drove to the grandparents' home bringing the grandparents' gift flowers sent for boutonniere and wrist corsage and surprised the elderly lovers.
The grandparents formally dressed and took Wedding pictures with the newlyweds, then watched the wedding video together.
The delicate quiet story of the grandparents mutual affection is detailed in author Nicholas Spark's full film commentary on The Notebook disc. In addition, Director Nick Cassavetes offers a second commentary about his experiences directing his mother Gena Rowlands as Allie Calhoun opposite James Garner as the solid consistently loving supportive accepting and dependable Noah.
Are we willing to risk giving our heart, knowing we may be disappointed by loss? For some, as Robert Duval's character Print in Broken Trail, a true story of a 500 horse muster from John Day Oregon to Sheridan Wyoming, the answer is no.
A wedding is just another party which lasts a day or so. Marriage is a lifetime of sacrifice, conflict fighting, compromise cooperation, teamwork to save for an uncertain future, plan together for parenting children, financial difficulties, shared joy, personal aspirations, like Allie's passion for oil painting, Noah's for reading poetry aloud and woodworking, and their joint commitment to do whatever it takes to help both become honest truthful compassionate whole, different and distinct human beings.
Whatever it takes: quote from Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld 21st century update of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Growing into maturity is a choice to risk going where we are afraid, doing what we are loathe to attempt whether it is financial self-discipline, self-aware honesty about our failures and fears, anxieties and hesitations, or generously giving our heart and being willing to have it broken by loss.
Love is a conscious choice. The inverted It's a Wonderful Life Christmas story (what if you HAD been there?) The Family Man with Nicholas Cage offers a poignant line by Tea Leoni: I choose us.
The Notebook offers the ambience of uniquely American Southern percussive music, the rhythm of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, tap ballroom and waltz as human communication, and the restraint and sacrificing devotion of caring and caregiving.
We were in Tajikistan when a man asked what we most missed about home as we gifted macadamia nuts from Hawaii. We replied: wherever we are together is home.
Tom Hanks as he takes Meg Ryan's hand in his, at the end of Sleepless in Seattle: I felt I had come home.
Being safely at home in one another is the message of The Notebook. 5*
English subtitles for the hearing impaired. Bonus deleted scenes.
To go over the story once again at this point, would be boringly redundant. I'm doing this review many years after its release. But as I was going through my recommendations for ratings, I stopped here and decided it was time to give this beautiful movie its due.
First of all, I am not a fan of Nicholas Sparks' books. No offense intended here because opinions are all relative and I know he has a huge fan following. I have read several of his books and have found them to be just a bit too simple and in need of a grammar lesson for me. The movies made from many of his books are worse and maybe eventually I will review one of them. But it is so much more fun, for me, to give the good reviews. I never read the book this movie is based on, so this review is strictly on the movie as it stands.
The Notebook, as a story, is brilliant. From the moment it starts with Duke, played with a heartbreaking sensitivity I'm not sure I've ever seen from the wonderful James Garner, wandering around in his nursing home, smiling at his friends and joking with the staff. It's a little confusing because we aren't let in on the depth of his suffering and the center of the story yet. *SPOILER ALERT* There will be spoiler alerts from here on out, but if you haven't seen or read this yet, get out from under your rock AND DO SO! I think the beauty of this movie starts at the beginning because we love Duke immediately. There is no building of a relationship. It just is. We also learn pretty much right out the door that his beloved wife also lives in the nursing home with him, but in another room because she is in the end stages of Alzheimer's Disease, the 5th largest killer of the world's population. That this movie shows explicitly the horror and agony of Alzheimer's for both the caretaker/lifetime partner, and the family surrounding them is an incredible bit of public service very necessary and appreciated by those touched by this evil disease. However, the beauty of this story is that at the center of it, is a love story so powerful, so touching, and, as we learn, so surprising, that the disease, while an evil villain, is only a facet of the story.
For me, the movie starts when the story becomes about Noah Calhoun, played by Ryan Gosling in, to me, one of his best acting parts (and I've seen too many of his movies), who meets the young and beautiful Allie, played by Rachel McAdams in, to me, one of HER best acting parts. Their romance is wonderful, fun, funny, lighthearted, everything most women dream about who want love, have loved, or have love in their lives. The love story isn't atypical of most love stories written and acted for centuries. But this one is touching in its portrayal of the depth and breadth of its intensity. Most love stories today, include a plethora of sex scenes to punctuate the depth of feeling. This story doesn't need it. It is implied as well as portrayed, but manages to show decades of love as a reality and not a fantasy. We do learn, of course, that this is the life love story of Duke and his beloved Allie, but not right away. And I think that lag is a brilliant part of the story woven here that attracted me and so many people.
The Notebook is as beautiful in story as a breathtaking painting is to those who gaze upon it. Each stroke is carefully placed, each color chosen to accentuate what are the most important aspects the artist wants portrayed. From the moment The Notebook opens to the closing scene, I cannot find one stroke out of place. One color that doesn't blend in perfectly with the scenery on the canvas.
I am a person who does not like sad endings to any story. But in The Notebook, once again, the portrait of the relationship between Duke and his Allie is perfect. No other ending would do. Yes, it is sad. But as a painting can also be excruciating in it's honesty and painfulness, so, too, is the ending of this movie.
The Notebook is simply not just a love story. Love stories abound in the world of fiction told in many shapes and forms. I have to make a little observation here that today, we see the proliferation of what is called erotic romance. Fantasy romance. Supernatural romance. And while I am not normally a fan of romance books, preferring thrillers and a good mystery, there are few stories today that can compare with The Notebook. I believe it will enter the realm of a classic romance along with the Bronte sisters who wrote so few books, but each one was like a portrait described above. These stories are rare and beautiful and are meant to expand our hearts and souls. They are meant not to titillate to read and be forgotten within minutes, but to savor for a lifetime. I haven't seen The Notebook in at least 7 years and yet, what I have written has been from memory. A book, a movie, a portrait that stays with you, that you will remember for a lifetime. I would encourage all of you to watch this movie, even the men here, if you have not already done so. It wouldn't hurt to watch or read Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights as well. For those who might not understand why these stories resonate - all of them - even today, it wouldn't hurt you to do some research. While contemporary romance is exciting and sexual, I doubt they will hold up for centuries. I believe The Notebook, as movie or book, will be around far longer and will stand up with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights as a beautiful portrait does, for many, many years. DO please watch this movie and keep your mind and especially your heart open because beauty, while being in the eye of the beholder, can move even the hardest of hearts.
Top reviews from other countries
In the nursing home, the tale begins when a kindhearted man goes to read to another resident, who is suffering from senile dementia. The woman is quickly entranced by the tale, spurring the reader on, and the story unfolds...
In the book, set in the early 1940s, a country boy catches sight of a girl and is immediately drawn to her. However, she is rich and he is poor, leading her to turn down his offer of a date on several occasions. Eventually, though, two of their mutual friends set them up and Allie realises that Noah is in fact a fine young man, despite his background. The two become close and fall deeply in love. They are inseparable and spend all the time together that they can, knowing in the back of their minds that the summer will soon be over and they'll have to make some tough decisions.
Presently, though, Allie's parents intervene. On discovering their daughter is not in her bed at 2am, a full-scale search is launched, leading them ultimately to a deserted house in which Allie and Noah are on the brink of making love for the first time. However, it is not to be and the two rush back to Allie's parents' summer home - to be faced with two very angry parents now determined to force them apart. They succeed and take Allie away - leaving the pair broken-hearted. Noah, still desperately in love, writes to Allie every day for a year, determined not to lose her. However, her mother hides the letters and Allie is devastated to think that the man she thought was her true love has forgotten her so easily.
On the arrival of World War II, Noah heads abroad to serve his country. In the meantime, Allie becomes a nurse, looking after sick and injured soldiers, knowing that in a way she is helping Noah by aiding his fellow fighters. The tale takes a twist when Allie falls for another man after helping him in the hospital. Lon (played by James Marsden) pursues Allie, easily winning over her parents, then pops the question. Noah's face fleetingly passes through Allie's mind as she accepts.
On returning from the war, Noah discovers that his father has sold his house to help his only son fund his lifelong dream - to restore the beautiful mansion he promised Allie he would one day own. He rebuilds and decorates the house to her specification, securing a photograph and an article in the newspaper, which by a strange coincidence ends up next to Allie's wedding announcement. After seeing her wedding announcement, Allie flips open the paper to see Noah's facing peering out. Instantly, she is thrown into turmoil, particularly as she sees that he has fulfilled his dream of owning and fixing up the mansion. She decides to pay him one last visit before her wedding.
Noah is delighted to see Allie, although he's unsure of her motives. Awkward at first, the two soon become accustomed to one another's company again and after being caught in a freak rainstorm, their passion is reignited. Allie is torn. She realises her feelings for Noah never went away, but she's now promised to become the wife of another man. What will she do?
Decades later in the nursing home, the story reaches its highly emotional conclusion. This is an absolutely beautiful story. The DVD cover claims that The Notebook is the most romantic film since Titanic. I wouldn't disagree. Girls, there won't be a dry eye in the house after watching this film. I loved it and can't wait to get my hands on the book.