Till death do us part: The Notebook
By Steve Beard

Novelist Nicholas Sparks knows how to keep the tissue manufacturers in business. If you read hanky-wringers, you will recognize him as the author behind movies such as A Walk to Remember and Message in a Bottle. His fans will be eagerly awaiting his latest novel-turned-movie, The Notebook. Yep, bring the Kleenex.

Set in North Carolina in the 1940s, the story draws us into the lives of two young lovers from different sides of the track. Gorgeous Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams, Mean Girls) is a pampered debutante with a wealthy daddy and an overprotective momma. One night at the county fair, she meets up with Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling, Remember the Titans), a mill worker who lives simply and loves extravagantly. He senses the destiny of a lifetime together, she thinks he is crazy. Nevertheless, Allie is wooed by Noah's charm.

The Notebook portrays their steamy can't-keep-our-hands-off-each-other summer romance. It is red-hot teenage infatuation that peels the paint-that is, until family meddling and World War II tear the young couple asunder.

Noah and Allie's fairy tale romance is read aloud each day by a man (James Garner) who comes to visit an Alzheimer's patient (Gena Rowlands) in a nursing home. Each visit reveals more of the combustible love story as he faithfully reads to her. We see the way that she engages the story as if it was familiar, battling the ruthless effects of Alzheimer's Disease.

The day after I saw The Notebook in Los Angeles, I watched the funeral for President Ronald Reagan when he was being laid to rest in Southern California. While most of the eulogies during that week had touched upon the romance of Ron and Nancy Reagan, perhaps one of the most moving movements occurred when Patti Davis, their daughter, described his final day: "He opened his eyes, eyes that had not opened for many, many days, and looked at my mother. He showed us that neither disease nor death can conquer love."

If you had to sum up the theme of The Notebook in a phrase, it would be that last sentence. Hipper-than-thou movie critics are going to call it sappy, sentimental, and unrealistic. Ignore them. You will not find a more jaundiced crowd than movie critics.

The movie is about enduring and passionate love that burns brightly with flames at the outset and ends up graduating to white-hot coals that last a lifetime. There is an everlastingness about it, a certain mysticism, an unmistakable magnetism, and an undying attraction that carries on to the exit gate of life.

For 23-year-old actor Ryan Gosling who plays Noah, the movie carried with it a fantastical element. "I felt like it was kind of a fairy tale, but an interesting one," he said. "I don't know anyone who has necessarily had a romance quite like this."

On the other hand, at age 76, veteran actor James Garner ("8 Simple Rules," "The Rockford Files") knows a thing or two about it. He proudly reports that he has been married to the same woman for 48 years. When I tell him about Gosling's point of view, Garner responds, "I don't see it like that at all. No, I see it as true to life."

When asked for any advise on how to make love work, he said: "I think that it is respect for the other person. And after you live with someone for a while, that love has grown into something else other than that physical urge. It has grown into companionship. What Noah and Allie have was that enduring kind of love and it consumed them."

After the male perspectives, I was most interested in hearing from the other side of the aisle. When Rachel McAdams was asked if the movie was true to life or a fairy tale, she said, "I believe this because my parents have it. I grew up in a house with two people who love each other very much and still do," she said. "It is so great to watch them grow old together..They know they've got it and they are not going to let it go. It is kind of a curse, because I won't settle for less."

For author Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook was not a romantic fantasy created by his novelist's imagination. In fact, the story was inspired by a visit with his wife's elderly grandparents who grew old in love. In an age of "hooking up" and hollow commitments, this movie portrays the kind of affection and longsuffering that marked the enduring relationships of a previous generation. Till death do us part, indeed. [Rated PG-13 "for some sexuality."]

 

Two Brothers

Siegfried and Roy were a flamboyant cornerstone of Las Vegas entertainment for nearly 30 years with their magic tricks and striking tigers. That all changed when Roy Horn was attacked by one of his exotic big cats last fall. According to spectators, halfway through one of the shows the tiger bit Horn on the arm and then lunged at his neck and dragged him off the stage like a rag doll. Horn is still recuperating from the incident.

Although we have grown accustomed to seeing these majestic beasts in circuses and zoos, it took this bizarre episode to reinforce a very basic law of nature: You can take the tiger out of the wild, but you can never take the wild out of the tiger. One imagines that this mantra was repeated over and over again on the set by the animal trainer during the filming of Two Brothers (Universal).

The story is told from the point of view of two tiger cubs, Sangha and Kumal, in early twenith-century Southeast Asia. The brothers are born in the ruins of an elegant and long-forgotten Buddist temple and roam like young princes amidst the moss-covered statues with their mother and father. Their family is torn apart when fortune hunter Aidan McRory (played by Guy Pearce) and his team discovers the abandoned temple and loots it for the statues that are collecting rich bounties in the West.

McRory, a big game hunter who writes exciting books about his adventures, is forced to kill the father as Sangha escapes with his mother. With great fascination, McRory captures Kumal and takes a liking to the frisky young tiger cub.

The two brothers are led into separate lives-Kumal is mercilessly domesticated in a circus, while Sangha is eventually captured and sold to a royal menagerie and trained to be a fighter for sport. The brothers are eventually reunited in an arena to brawl to the death. Without wanting to give too much more away, let me simply say that the brothers end up having a rollicking good time at their reunion.

I grew up watching Marlin Perkins host "The Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" on television. Like every other kid, I was amazed at the beauty, nobility, and ferociousness of tigers. Two Brothers brought back that wonderment. Besides being visually captivating, it is a great story for kids about family bonds, sibling affection, and respect for nature. The movie ends soberly: "A century ago, there were over 100,000 tigers like Kumal and Sangha living in the wild. Today, fewer than 5,000 remain."

The tale is heartbreaking, humorous, and inspiring-without being some anti-hunting screed. While the movie does probe the ramifications of keeping wild animals in captivity, it does so without hitting you over the head with the butt of a hunting musket.

The charismatic French director Jean-Jacques Annaud, who directed the critically acclaimed The Bear, refused to paint Aiden McRory as a heartless "Great White Hunter" with bloodlust. Instead, McRory is far more complicated and introspective than his dapper smuggler image would portray.

The film set was controlled by special tiger-proof security nets and the animals roamed free within the area, often covering several acres. "We spent our days in cages, behind bars and nets with the animals working around us," says Annaud.

"I have enormous respect for these animals," says Two Brothers animal trainer Thierry Le Portier. "You cannot change their personalities, you can only add training..As soon as you step away, he is back to being a normal tiger with all of the tiger's ferocity."

For much of the movie, I was simply amazed at how some of the scenes were created. After all, the tigers are not props, they are the actors. One hears nightmare stories about prima donna actresses in Hollywood who are terrors to work with; but nothing could possibly be more nerve-racking than dealing with a performer who can literally take your arm off when he falls into a foul mood.

One imagines that Siegfried and Roy would heartily agree. [Rated PG for mild violence.]

Steve Beard is the editor of Good News.



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