The late evening movie on the drama network was The Notebook that at first blush looked like a sappy love story, but turned out to be rather good. The movie was driven by the two actors playing the younger selves of an old man telling a love story to his wife, who suffered dementia. The movie was based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, just as the Mandy Moore flick A Walk To Remember , which I also found surprisingly good (if somewhat less so). Both had tragic elements, but hey, I'm a sucker for that sort of thing if it is done right as well.
Both movies appealed largely because of the full emotional richness of the characters with a spiritual force that is often hard to find. Ryan Gosling has shown his acting chops in some recent dramas, including as a drug addicted teacher in Half Nelson. Rachel McAdams has been good in various roles, including Mean Girls. She really shined here. Both provide powerful performances with great emotional high points. The director, the son of the great director (some starring Gena Rowlands, who plays the older woman here, James Garner playing her husband) John Cassavetes, has a really mixed record (including direct to video garbage) -- he does fine here.
A very good moment that underlined the charm of the movie took place when the two were ready to make love, clearly for the first time on her end. As she slowly decided to disrobe (it was PG-13, so no nudity, but sensual all the same -- more so arguably than many films that do show more skin ... when they later hook up, it is even more so), you could see the emotions going through her mind on her face. And, this continued while they began, she still nervous, talking fast and furious while he quietly looked at her, eventually simply saying how he loved her. The whole sequence was wonderfully done, a sign of what often is not in the movies these days -- there was love at first sight (on his end, at least), but we saw the love grow, and the heartache when it was broken-up.
It is often said that movies are geared to a male teenage demographic, which might underline a flaw I find in our cinema ... a general lack of the serious love story. As suggested here, and in very good films like Say Anything, the teenage years can provide them. Hey, look at Romeo and Juliet, but many teenage "romances" are less deep. On the male end, it often might be more about sex. Such seems to be the theme in many movies. Some alternatives do exist, and more power to them, but all too often the emotional richness is not there. Given the material, this is as depressing as the fact history is not as properly mined for story lines. I'm all for good genre flicks of all sorts -- Leviathan is listed as a cheap Aliens clone in my movie guide, but I found it fun.
Still, here's a plea for more emotionally rich love stories. Or, relationship flicks even. Human emotion is essential to good cinema, so why avoid such powerful material?