Caution: Spoiler Warning... I will tell you what happens... (Semi) Old School Movie Review #4

(First complaint- do not put a picture on the cover that gives away the entire dramatic question of the film. We are all sitting here thinking "will they get back together? Then, she shows up in a blue dress, he says lets go-its going to rain, and boom- we know all because we entered the disk and saw it. Hmm. That was stupid. Keep an already non-suspenseful movie right out in the audience's lap. Real Cool.)

I recently watched "The Notebook" and I have a few things to say about it. First is that everyone kept saying how sad it was, "you better wash your make-up off cause you're going to cry!" Or "Oh, you have to be in a depressing mood to watch that- you will bawl your eyes out..." I don't know that I wholeheartedly agree with either of these warnings. I did shed a few, but perhaps not for the same reasons that you might think. I wasn't surprised at all which guy she was going to marry, I wasn't surprised at all about the old couple and how they would turn out. I thought the film did a few things very well that got me, probably more circumstantially than artisically—if that makes any sense at all. I explain:

The story reads like any other "chick flick" because it has the fall in love sequence, the someone-or-something-tore-us-apart-to-make-us-all-dramatic sequence, then the musical montage as they get back together, and then the happily ever after moment that girls will study over and over to compare their boring unromantic lives to. Sorry men.

I enjoyed the voiced over dialog (voice of the young heart throb as an old man) who explained the reality of the relationship. He explained how the two fought about everything. They argued and they teased each other incessantly. But the one thing they had in common was that they were crazy about each other. After her mom makes her family leave and she almost marries some other guy that would seem to be perfect for her—and who the parents love—she comes back home to find her first love with her dream house that he built from the bottom up. After a perfect few days, they have to decide what to do- he is a country boy and she a city girl. What he says to her is my favorite part of the movie because it is so honest of some relationships. He says to her, "This wont be perfect. It will be really really hard and we will have to work at it every day. I need someone to tell me when I am an arrogant son of a B——, and you need someone to tell you when you are a pain in the A—. Which, is about 99% of the time, but you have an incredible turn around time!"

I love the honesty in that statement. No- marriage isn't roses and dancing all of the time. The people we marry aren't going to be perfect or have all of the right things to say. But they should be between two people who know each other well enough to challenge them and keep them on their toes. I appreciated that they tried to create a sense of reality in that moment.

So when did I cry? I guess it was as I thought of those couples that have been separated and get to be together again. It made me think of the real love that they must share because of the struggle that it is everyday to make it work. It isn't the young love that makes me cry—it's the old love. Deep, I know.