• Friday, June 25, 2004

• Country:

  USA

• Language:

  English

• Runtime:

  123 min

2004

An old man in a nursing home reads a story to an old woman each day. The story he reads follows two young lovers named Allie Hamilton and Noah Calhoun. They met one evening at a carnival many years ago. Allie's parents separate Noah and Allie. They disapprove of Noah's lack of wealth, and move Allie away. After waiting for Noah to write her for several years, Allie meets and becomes engaged to a handsome young soldier named Lon.

In a local newspaper, Noah's picture catches Allie's eye. He is standing in front of a fully restored, 200 year old home. The article is filled with praise for his accomplishments. Allie's heart nearly bursts. The last time she saw this house it was a rotted decaying shamble. She stood enfolded in Noah's arms in the great entryway and listened to his plans to buy and restore this house.

Just the way she wanted it. With her love for Noah still alive, the picture pulls at her heart. She has to go back, see if Noah is okay, and tell him about her marriage. They both think the echo deep in their hearts, the one that has lasted all these years, is not shared by the other. The cry they could not stifle. It wasn't over for me.

Goofs

• Factual errors: The film Li'l Abner (1940) was not in theaters during the summer of 1940. RKO did not release the picture until 1 November of that year.
• Continuity: During the scene where the family are playing music and dancing outside the front of the house, Allie appears to be sitting on the porch playing a Jew's Harp, when the camera changes angles it vanishes.
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the scene with Noah and Allie in the Windsor Plantation, after Noah explains about the significance of the stairs, we can hear Allie say, "This place is gigantic," but her mouth doesn't move until a few seconds after it was said.
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the band is playing on Noah's front porch and his father is playing the spoons with the band, as his father gets up to dance with Allie, he lays them down, but the sound of the spoons playing can still be heard in the music.
• Revealing mistakes: During the first love scene at the plantation house when Noah begins to get up, if you look quickly, you can see that he is actually wearing boxers.
• Continuity: When Allie and Noah are in the boat (just before it starts to rain), Allie's fringe/bangs are curled up tightly. A few moments later (when it begins to rain), Allie's fringe/bangs are perfectly straight. This could not have happened so quickly.
• Continuity: When Duke is having an exam by the doctor two chest x-rays are on the light box behind him. The films are both reversed left to right but in a later shot they are correct - right to left.
• Continuity: In the shot where Noah and Allie are eating lunch after he's read to her some, he is wearing his reading glasses. In the next shot he is wearing his bifocals.
• Continuity: The position of Allie's left earring changes from two pearls on top and on the bottom to one on the top and two on the bottom.
• Continuity: When the older Allie and Noah are having the candlelit dinner for two, Allie is wearing a plaid shawl over her red jacket as she begins to sit down. In the next shot of her seated, the shawl is off, with no time for her to have removed it. In the next shot, it's back on again.

Taglines

• Behind every great love is a great story.

Trivias

• Ryan Gosling built the kitchen table featured in the movie in preparation for his role as Noah.
• In the scene when Allie is in college, her professor says "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself". This is a quote of Walt Whitman, the poet that wrote the poems Noah was reading to his father on the porch when Allie gives him her painting. The professor wrote "Leaves of Grass" on the board during this scene which is also the title of a book written by Walt Whitman.
• Background music for the original theatrical trailer for this film featured music from 'Rachel Portman (I)' 's score for The Cider House Rules (1999) .
• Gena Rowlands, who played older Allie in the movie, is the director's (Nick Cassavetes) mother.
• 'Ryan Gosling (I)' (Young Noah) wore brown eye contacts because James Garner (Old Noah) has brown eyes, and Gosling has blue.
• The "after 7 years Allie and Noah" scenes were shot first and then the crew/cast went on a Christmas break. Ryan Gosling had to lose the beard and 20lbs he'd had as the older Noah and come back to play the young Noah. Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling were rather shy and unsure around each other in the "after 7 years" scenes but were more comfortable together in the young Allie and Noah scenes.
• Ryan Gosling prepared for his role by living in Charleston, South Carolina before filming began. For two months, he rowed the Ashley River in the morning and built furniture during the day.
• Rachel McAdams auditioned for the role during another movie's premiere. She was given the script just a day in advance. She beat nine other actresses for the role. The scenes used during her audition included the one of Allie's and Noah's argument at the end after Allie and her mother return from their morning drive.
• This is one of two movies Rachel McAdams has starred in that reference a man named Duke. In the first, The Notebook (2004) , her husband has the nickname Duke, and in the second, Red Eye (2005), she tells Jackson that her grandmother had a boyfriend named Duke.

Awards

1. Artios
   Event: Casting Society of America, USA
   Result: Nominated
   Category: Best Feature Film Casting - Drama
   Recipient(s): Matthew Barry
2. MTV Movie Award
   Event: MTV Movie Awards
   Result: Won
   Category: Best Kiss
   Recipient(s): Rachel McAdams