No wait, that looks pretty sensual actually. But who the hell wants to watch a strictly romantic flick (not romantic comedy, mind you.)?
Wong the Lawyer had free tickets to watch a strictly no free tickets show, so we had a choice between The Notebook and Fahrenheit 9/11(What's the title anyway?), and we chose the former.
It is the absolute best romance movie I have watched.
Maybe I am biased, because I totally ADORE lead actress Rachel McAdams. I think she is the MOST (yes, most) pretty actress in Hollywood. Let's talk about her.
Her bigger debut came from The Hot Chick, where her character was acted out by Rob Schneider most of the time. Yet, both the actor's and actress' acting was so convincingly good, that we forgot they do NOT actually have each other's spirits inside their bodies!
In other words, Rachel's acting as Rob's character, a dirty old vagabond, was utterly convincing.
Rachel is not the blonde airhead she is in that show, clearly. In fact, she has been acting since she was 13.
I was already wondering to myself what a classic like her is doing acting only as second leads.
And then came Mean Girls, where she had to play second fiddle to stupid Lindsey Lohan, but at least she is still acting ...
Her big break finally came in The Notebook.
I'm not gonna have spoilers, I promise.
The movie starts of extremely boring, with an old man rowing a boat serenely across a river. Bah! They even had seagulls to complete the picture.
The story started to get better as a old man visits an old lady in the hospital, and started to read a story book to her, in an attempt to cheer her up. The story is ... ahh ... very beautiful.
Leads Allie (Rachel) and Noah (Ryan Gosling, quite cute too) meets in 1954, and falls in love in a incredible summer romance. Their adoration for each other is spectacular yet extremely realistic, for they too have their fights and arguments, but it's their strong love (they are crazy about each other) which carries them on. Their chemistry was reverbrating in the audience, and watching them with a placid smile on my face while Allie repeatedly runs to meet Noah, I knew I was about to sob later.
Unlike A Walk to Remember where stupid Mandy Moore dies of, predictably, cancer (orbi good) or Sweet November where that ugly curly haired girl also died (Ha!), the show brings out the romance without making the average single viewer feel irksome. Maybe it's simply coz for once, the lead is not an angmoh shu nu - all perfect and demure. YUCK. KILL MANDY MOORE!!! BLEAH! (I would say I like My Sassy Girl for the same reason. The female lead is not another normal girl.)
Both Noah and Allie are extremely likable.
For one, they do not let their relationship affect their friendships, which is important for me, as I feel that a relationship where the two lovers only have themselves is unrealistic. Their romantic scenes consists of times spent with both their mutual friends, with Noah's father, who is a funny old man, and also when they were alone.
Secondly, they are both good looking, of course.
Their love was so chaste that when they did have a sex scene, I did not want to see Rachel's boobs (a first I assure you), as that will symbolise a common carnal sexual attraction between them. They are not a common couple just wanting to fuck like rabbits! They want to make love, not just copulate!
The problem comes in here. Noah is a poor boy, and Allie comes from a well-to-do family. Predictable you say? Just hold on a little.
Allie's parents stop her, but unlike most movies where the bad guys are made thoroughly bad so that the audience would hate them, Allie parents show a good side to themselves later on in the movie, plus .... Allie loves her parents.
She however, defends her love by telling her mother that she knows about love, although she is merely 17 (Rachel is 28!). Her mother, she said, does not look at her father like the way she looks at Noah, nor laugh like her and Noah. She knows, she insists, that she LOVES Noah.
The two get separated as they quarrelled and World War II intervenes, and everyone (actually just me) started to sob non-stop. It was so saddening.
And because the movie is an adaption of a novel, the script is just remarkably surreal.
The movie moves on with the leads' separate lives, and then with a big twist that is not exactly unexpected, but still heartwrenching all the same.
It's the most I have cried in a cinema, and the first time I was still sobbing when I went OUT of the cinema.
My readers, please do go watch this beautiful movie if you do have that $6.50/$7.50/$8.50 to spare.
You faithful movie reviewer,
Xiaxue
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