I am evaluating the movie the Notebook directed by Nick Cassavetes and written by the world renowned Nicolas Sparks. It features the perfect couple, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, who had a steamy romance throughout the movie. The Notebook is a popular romance film that women like to refer to as a “chick flick.” Almost every woman in America has seen it, and many guys were forced by their girlfriends to miserably sit through it. Total, this sappy film made $115.6 million worldwide, so I think its work an evaluation.
The Notebook is categorized as a romance novel and it could be compared to millions of other sappy love stories. When looking into classic love stories, the Notebook was a compatible candidate on the list.
Criteria:
Since the Notebook is a romance novel, it needs to target a fully female audience. To do this, the director needs to think through the mind of a woman. Women like to see a passionate love scene where the relationship gets hot and heavy. They like to see the male character to be vulnerable to the woman at some point in the movie, and he needs to express his deep love for her. Watching from a guys’ perspective, this is a sign of weakness and not a real man. But since there is a woman audience, the guy needs to have a sensitive side. By knowing who the audience is, the director can accurately mold his or her characters.
To be a good romance novel, it needs to have a good story line that provokes emotion through some kind of relationship. Usually to keep the watcher on the tip of her seat, the relationship needs to not be so easy. There needs to be a challenge or obstacle that is holding the match made in heaven apart. This adds to the emotional aspect of the movie. In the Notebook, Noah (Ryan) and Ally (Rachel) have this hot and heavy summer romance where they fall deeply in love. They are passionate lovers, while at the same time defensive fighters. They constantly fight and make up throughout the summer. Ally has to move away once the school year has started and then she continues onto college in a different location, holding the couple back. Not only is there distance between these love birds, but Alley’s mother secretly steels the letters that Noah wrote to her. So on one hand, Noah is confessing his love to Ally without a response, and Ally is miserably waiting for Noah to write her. Suspension builds when Ally later on in life finds another man who she is engadged to. The story takes off from there, but case in point, there is something preventing the couple from being together.
Also, the woman in the romance film needs to be identifiable to all women. Every woman cries during a romance film because there is something they want that they don’t have. Every woman who ever watches romance films sees a little bit of herself in the main female character, and she is envious of her. That’s why we watch them! Because when women are sitting at home all alone, crying about a boy who they just lost or never had, they pop in a chick flick to feel better about themselves. This is because it’s nice to watch the perfect relationship and fantasize oneself inside the movie. So a main criteria for a good romance film is that the main female character needs to be relatable to all women watching. Ally is a very likable character with her bubbly personality, yet she is a stubborn woman. She is a lover and a fighter, which most women find as an admirable trait.
A good romance novel also needs to make the viewer cry! Granted, everyone is different on how often they cry, but to be honest, it is a general assumption that women like to cry more than men. To be a good romantic film, there needs to be some tears shed by the viewers, and by that, it means the director provoked emotion in just the right places. Typically, women watch romantic films on a rainy day by themselves with a tub of ice cream. They’re not watching it on a Friday night before they’re about to go out, or with a group of friends to pass the time. They do this because they are expecting to cry and look like a mess, so obviously they are going to do this in the comfort of their own home by themselves where no one can see their vulnerability. So if a woman specifically watches this movie by herself or with a couple girls or boyfriend, there better be some crying going on! Or else the director failed for making an effective romantic film. Personally, I’ve seen the Notebook over a dozen times and I have cried every time. The directors use of flash backs and passionate love scenes will have the viewer bursting into tears.
Last but not least, the couple needs to end up together. Chick flicks bring a woman through an emotional roller-coaster and by the end of her sobbing, the female viewer wants the satisfaction of a happy ending. It gives her a little hope that something like this does exist in the real world. Ideally, that’s why women watch them; they want to see something they can’t have which somehow makes them feel better about themselves. Specifically in the Notebook, the couple dies of old age together in bed. Although the death was sad, the soul mates could then be eternally happy in heaven.
If these five criteria’s aren’t met, then the director might as well not even bother wasting the money to film a movie because no woman would ever want to see a romantic film that is anything different.
