Blu-ray Review: The Notebook - Limited Edition Gift Set

Most of the Nicholas Sparks novels adapted for film are sappy, over-the-top, chick flicks that are only geared for one thing – making women cry. But, The Notebook is a much deeper, much better film than the others. The Notebook exists on more levels than just the emotionally tugging one. The ShowThe film starts out with an elderly couple sitting alone. The man, played fabulously by James Garner, is retelling a story to a woman with Alzheimer’s disease. Gena Rowlands plays the woman, who tragically cannot remember who the man is that is talking to her. But, she enjoys the story he is telling her. The story whisks us back to the ’40s to tell us the love story of Allie and Noah.Allie (Rachel McAdams) is an affluent young woman. Noah (Ryan Gosling) is blue-collar sawmill worker. They fall madly in love with each other, but their love doesn’t come without its difficulties. Allie’s mother is too proud and rich to have her daughter fall in love with such riff-raff. They also fight. A lot. But, each time they fight, they make up and their relationship becomes stronger because of it.Like I said before most of the movies adapted from Sparks’ novels are focused on the tear quotient, but Nick Cassavetes adaption is inherently character-centric. Even with all the romantic film clichés thrown in it still works, in part because of the story, but mostly because of the fine actors. McAdams and Gosling are great together. They have visible chemistry on screen. Even when they are fighting they seem like the genuinely care for each other. But, Garner and Rowlands steal the show in their few scenes. They are sweet and endearing characters, and for anyone that actually has a loved one going through the stages of Alzheimer’s you’ll realize that Rowlands has it exactly right. The PackagingThis special edition set is huge. It’s a matte-finished cardboard box about as wide as five regular Blu-ray keepcases side-by-side. It will definitely take up a big share of shelf space, so be prepared. It opens like a book and is jam-packed with all sorts of extras only a girl would love.The first is a nifty little spiral bound diary-like scrapbook with information about the film and cast. The actual movie disc is nestled away in the back of the book in a digipack plastic tray.Also included are two bookmarks (apparently to use while reading other work by Mr. Sparks), sappy stickers that say things like “Smile” and “True Love,” corner stickers that will hold your photos on a scrapbook page, and a little stationary set.While the scrapbook is that holds the film’s disc is nice the rest of the stuff seemed a little bit useless, even to my wife. Even with all of the included stuff, there’s still no reason why the package should be as big as it is.The QualityThe high definition of The Notebook is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. 

Article Author: Aaron Peck

All of Aaron's reviews first appear in print for The Herald Journal Cache Magazine. He's also running the fledgling film site The Reel Place.com.

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