The Romantic/Unromantic Notebook

(Photo of the infamous "kiss in the rain scene" between Noah (Ryan Gosling) and Allie (Rachel McAdams) in 2004's love story, The Notebook.)

Seven years after it was released, I finally decided to watch the film many people (mainly women) swoon over, just at the mention of the title--- The Notebook.

After having seeing it, the mention of the title makes me do the exact opposite--- grimace.

From most of the rave reviews the movie got, half of me figured it would be even more of a sweeping romance story than 1997's Titanic--- but the other half of me figured it wouldn't be since it did take me seven years to watch it since when it was first released--- the story just didn't pull me in enough to want to see it then.

After seeing The Notebook, I wish I would have waited another seven years to see it!

I found it:

-Practically never ending (it could have ended a lot earlier than when it actually did end)

-Corny in a non-cute way where corniness can be cute (my eyes just wouldn't stop rolling)
 -Complete with unreal dialogue for the 40's (young Noah says to young Allie, "You tell me when I am being an arrogant son-of-a-bitch and I tell you when you are a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time... You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing." I doubt in the 40's the expressions "99% of the time" or "2 second rebound rate" was actually used.) 

-And oddly comical (which caused the only tears to spill from eyes) being it wasn't a romantic comedy

Most of all--- The Notebook is grossly unromantic by the end. 

Creepy by the end is more like it.

The romance The Notebook does have (I admit, Noah is charming and Allie is adorable and how their love blossoms is sweet) all ends with the scene of old Noah inadvertently freaking out his wife, old Allie who has dementia, while she screams, "I don't know you! Get away!"

There's nothing romantic about that.

How can the ending where they both end up implausibly dying in their sleep together be considered romantic???

The ending is just disturbing.

A romantic ending would have been if old Allie remembered old Noah and after they kiss and embrace, the scene cut to the end.

Not two people lying in a bed dead. Even if they are lying in a romantic embrace.

In the novel The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks, upon which the film is based on, the ending is different and a little more romantic. In the novel ending, old Noah and Allie are sleeping together and she dies in his arms. It's still sad but not as eerie or disturbing as both of them dying together.

Well!  
At least now I can say I've seen the overrated half romantic, half unromantic The Notebook.

  

But I really really wish I'd waited even longer to see it or better yet--- never saw it at all!