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Try watching this Hallmark card come to life, framed within Robert Fraisse's voluptuous cinematography, and resist being reduced to a blubbering softie. Director Nick Cassavetes' savvy approach is that rather than steer clear of every romantic convention, he piles them high and deep until you cave in to his lovers' fairy tale soaked in soap suds.
With their story told in flashbacks, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams (Mean Girls) are young lovers who meet in their teens in a more innocent America, and are reunited after World War II. And, as revealed midway through and easily guessed from the beginning, James Garner and the director's mom, Gena Rowlands, are their elderly, nursing home-bound selves, with Garner reading to Rowlands from a notebook/diary, hoping to revive her blotted-out memories of their storied romance.
Gosling and McAdams are a made-to-cheer-for couple. Seasoned pros Garner and Rowlands deftly essay the sunset years, and Joan Allen, Sam Shepard and James Marsden provide stellar support. Let your heart override your brain and The Notebook is the sweet, sometimes bittersweet, stuff of dreams.