Expect an amazing chemical reaction
I hate a good love story. Perhaps it is just a quirk in my personality, but
I have never appreciated the shameless manipulation of the genre. As films,
they are rarely challenging or intriguing. Why then would I recommend The
Notebook, an unabashedly romantic and sentimental tearjerker?
This one seems to work, despite the basic plot’s lack of originality. The
story begins in the present as retiree James Garner visits a woman suffering
from Alzheimer’s (Gena Rowlands) in a nursing home. Garner reads to Rowlands
a story of young love that is handwritten in a notebook. The movie then flashes
back to the ’40s and young lovers, Noah (Ryan Gosling) and Allie (Rachel McAdams).
Noah comes from a poor, working class background; Allie’s family is wealthy
and disapproves of the relationship. Soon the summer romance comes to an end,
and college, war, and letters that never reach their destination lead to a prolonged
separation. When they reunite seven years later, she is now engaged to someone
else and faces a major choice.
Throughout the story the film shifts back and forth between past and present,
and it becomes clear that Garner and Rowlands are the older Noah and Allie.
This device is very effective as each segment strengthens the other. The film’s
greatest assets are the performances of Gosling and McAdams who develop an amazing
chemistry. There is never a false note in their relationship. Gosling is clearly
destined for stardom. Anyone who witnessed his searing portrayal of a Nazi skinhead
in The Believer knows his abilities. McAdams is every bit his match,
which fuels the intensity of their relationship. Garner is also a standout,
and he displays more honest emotion here than in all his light romantic comedies
from the ’60s. The Notebook works on you very slowly, leading to a three
hanky gusher. I can’t imagine anyone not being affected by its emotional payoff.(MS)
Where thereÕs smoke, there may be fire
Michael Moore’s controversial Fahrenheit 9/11 documents financial ties
between influential Saudi Arabian interests, including the family of terrorist
Osama bin Ladin and the family of President George W. Bush, over the course
of 30 years. By Moore’s reckoning, some $1.4 billion has been funneled into
Bush family accounts and businesses, influencing how the current occupant of
the White House has conducted the war on terror since the World Trade Center
was obliterated in 2001. Moore contends that the Bush Administration purposefully
channeled public outrage over the attack into a needless and dangerous war in
Iraq.
Moore reviews the record, much of it now familiar to those who have followed
the work of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
(the “9/11 Commission”). He notes that Bush failed to hold a meeting on the
threat of terrorism during his first eight months in office and ignored intelligence
reports that warned of a potential bin Ladin attack on the U.S. He reminds us
that the administration allowed 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin
Ladin family, to fly out of the U.S. on Sept. 13, 2001 while all non-military
aircraft were grounded. He asserts the administration promoted a war with Iraq
by alleging a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda that did not exist.
The result, Moore asserts, is a war that has claimed more than 5,700 U.S. casualties,
including nearly 850 deaths, and, based on conservatives estimates, killed more
than 9,400 Iraqi civilians.
It’s hard not to be moved by the sight of Iraqi children with their scalps
being stitched closed or their arms torn open or footage of an elderly Iraqi
woman, who has lost her home and five family members, cursing our country. The
anguish of the innocents in the crossfire, particularly that of Flint, Mich.,
mother Lila Lipscomb, who lost her son in the war and grieves on camera as she
looks for answers outside the White House, is where the film contains most of
its power.
Those familiar with Michael Moore’s documentary work know his left-wing politics,
and it should come as no surprise that his latest work would attempt to make
the Bush Administration look foolish. Regrettably, as Fahrenheit 9/11
powerfully demonstrates, the president gives critics more than enough material
to make their case. (CK)
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2004.
