Well, I did it. I took my masculinity to the next level. I watched The Notebook. And I liked it.
Many of my female friends have cited it as ‘the film they’ve cried the most at’ over the years. Some of my more honest male friends have said the same, only in fewer words. Something like “really sad”, usually.
It is really sad, because it was designed to be. Every aspect of the film was designed to tug on your heartstrings at strategic points in the story. It’s this formulaic nature that is the film’s most crowning achievement.
The story follows a very classical design, what scriptwriting guru Robert McKee calls the “Archplot”. It features causal and linear change, a closed ending, external conflicts and protagonists who actively pursue their destinies. The Notebook is undeniably of the romance genre and has exactly what you would expect from the genre: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy loses girl and so on. The picturesque cinematography and dreamy orchestration immediately scream at the audience: “this is a conventional romantic drama”. The casting directors have chosen conventionally attractive male and female leads: the gorgeous Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling. The overall design is cohesive, coherent and pleasing.
Despite all of these very apparent and deliberate generic traits, enjoyment of the film is not hindered in the slightest. In fact this conventionality is the very trait that makes the film so enjoyable.
It’s all about balance: too much generic traits and the film is plagued by cliché and contrivance; not enough conventionality and the film becomes too incoherent to be enjoyable. The Notebook strikes these balances perfectly in all aspects of the film. It is expressionistic at times, naturalistic at others. Its glowing romanticism avoids saccharinity by measured moments of dramatic realism. Its sadness is balanced by a sense of simple optimism. The soundtrack is overtly emotive, but used selectively.
As well as all of these technical elements, the story also does well to avoid laborious mediocrity in a genre notorious for it. For example, one aspect of the story is that Allie’s parents are opposed to her relationship with Noah. Just as you think “that’s all a bit Romeo and Juliet”, the mother character is given a new dimension as a complex subplot is revealed, her motivations change and everything feels more real than an archetypal Shakespearean romance. The Notebook consistently sits on the sweet spot in the tension between generic and unique.
When a film can be described as generic yet original, that’s when it can be described as a textbook example of its genre. This is Hollywood filmmaking at its finest: when films are designed to provoke a certain kind of reaction and achieve this goal with devastating accuracy, whilst remaining effortlessly enjoyable.
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