The Notebook Movie Review: a Timeless Tale of Love

A Serendipitous Beginning to a Stellar Career

This inspiring young woman found her calling in a last-minute theatre intervention. She is one of the most outstanding Canadian actresses in North America. After her decision on cultural studies, a teacher pulled her to the side. She asked her about acting. After this conversation, she changed her mind to acting. Now she has played in multiple hit movies. Rachel McAdams is a known actress in North America because of her role in The Notebook, Wedding Crashers, and many other great movies.

Childhood Aspirations and Early Challenges

Rachel as a child, had always wanted to be in musicals and figure skating. Later, she chose to be a culture studier. Since Rachel was very young, she dreamed of being in musicals. When she was twelve, that opportunity opened up when she signed up for Disney Camp. She was embarrassed because she was dancing with eight-year-old future Broadway stars that were singing at the top of their lungs like they had done it since two(Abbey, 2006). In the beginning, she was so clumsy she wanted to run home and cry. Since Rachel was so athletic, she competed with other individuals in figure skating. She had done it from four years old to sixteen. While in high school, she found solo skating. She labeled it as a “fairly ruthless sport in terms of time and energy.”

University Life and Finding Her Calling

Later, she teamed up with a synchronized skating group, where things lightened up a little more. “We wore costumes and blue eyeshadow up to our eyebrows and a bottle of hairspray each,” Rachel said with a laugh. Before graduation, Rachel’s drama teacher called her to an intervention because of her choice to go to York University in Toronto for culture studies and steered her toward acting. “She literally grabbed me the day before university applications were due and said, ‘Why aren’t you going into theatre?'” Rachel said. It ignited something that was there, but she hadn’t been brave enough to follow through with it. After their talk, she quickly steered toward acting. She went to York University for a bachelor’s degree in theatre studies. Rachel accomplished her dream of being in musicals and figure skating. She also found acting as her career.

Breakthrough Role in “The Notebook”

Rachel’s biggest opportunity of being a great actress rolled up when The Notebook was calling auditions. In the making of The Notebook(2004), the director was looking for a feisty young southern girl who was strong, irresistible, and honest to play Allie, a girl who falls in love with a handsome but unsuitable sawmill boy named Duke. Nick Cassavetes, the director of The Notebook, wanted a girl who would say, “I’m the one you want. I know how to play as Allie. Shut up and roll the film. Rachel was a strong character in this movie. They couldn’t have done it without her.

When The Notebook’s script came out, Rachel was one of the first to read it. As she read it, she couldn’t stop crying. It’s a big, sweeping, epic love story. This is the biggest and best film she has ever played in, and she is the main character. She described herself as a hopeless romantic, a softie, and a smooshy person. It’s a very honest and pure love story, and they aren’t told as much as they should be. The Notebook is a love story told as a series of flashbacks from the present day, as an elderly man reads chapters from a notebook to his wife, who has Alzheimer’s (Abbey, 2006). After this movie, she grew up a little bit, and she couldn’t go back. Her last movie playing as a sixteen-year-old would be Mean Girls. She is moving on. After her big hit in The Notebook, Rachel went on to play in more mature adult films.

Branching Out: Comedy and New Friendships

One of Rachel’s best comedies showed up in the release of Wedding Crashers. In the making of Wedding Crashers, a movie in that Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan crash weddings and pick up women. Rachel played as a bridesmaid at the wedding they crashed. When Wilson falls in love with her, it causes a rift between the buddies(Abbey, 2006). Rachel said that Wilson always made her laugh before the shooting by saying something silly, making funny faces, and whispering to her before the cameras rolled. She said he also kept her on her toes. This movie was the beginning of her future comedies, and she made new friends along the way.

Delving into Thriller: “Red Eye”

Red Eye was Rachel’s first thriller movie and her best one yet. In Red Eye, a terrorist catches Rachel and tells her if she doesn’t help kill a government official, he will kill her father(Abbey, 2006). It’s a really dire situation. If she helps Jackson carry out his plan, she will be as much a murderer as he is. Red Eye takes place in an airplane cabin where the terrorist reveals who he is and what he is doing, and if Rachel doesn’t help, catastrophic events will happen to her dearest father. Red Eye has put Rachel in People magazine and showed she can out-act many great actresses.

Continued Success with “Southpaw” and “Spotlight”

Southpaw and Spotlight are also #1 movies. In 2015, Rachel starred in the drama, Southpaw, where she is the wife of Billy “The Great” Hope, a reigning junior middleweight boxing champion(Casey, 2018). Later, Billy hits rock bottom, losing his family, his house, and his manager. Finally, he finds a really good trainer, gets back on his feet, and gets his family back. She also played in Spotlight as an investigative journalist. She has to follow her crew to find a wanted child molester who abducted at least eighty young boys. They have to arrest him and find the children. Southpaw is rated at 7.4, and Spotlight is at 8.1(IMDb).

Rachel expressed her love for comedy in an interview. After Rachel was done casting for Game Night, a comedy that tells the story of a couple who get addicted to playing board games and find themselves trapped in a game night. She relates to this movie because her parents bought them board games every Christmas. They are a big gaming family. “I love doing comedy and physical comedy because it is endlessly challenging,” said Rachel. She is very competitive, but if it’s with new people, she goes easy on them(Infotrac Newsstand, 2018). Rachel wants to and will star in many more comedies in the future.

Reflecting on a Successful Journey

Rachel calls herself successful in many ways. When Rachel looks back at her past success and her future, she feels many emotions. She gets excited, intimidated, uncertain, engulfed in stress, and blissful all at the same time(Abbey, 2006). Opportunities are definitely coming up…being in a position to be able to choose[what role to play next]is very stressful, but very amazing, wonderful, and such a gift. Rachel is one of the most successful Canadian actresses in America.

Rachel loves being home and doing her regular daily activities. Rachel’s life, while not making movies, is full of fun, including riding her bike around town, gardening, cooking, and playing Ultimate Frisbee, a non-contact game that is mixed with football and soccer, with the neighborhood kids. She says that Ultimate Frisbee is social and more active than going to the gym. Rachel’s life comes to a screeching halt when she isn’t making movies because she can do what she enjoys with family and friends(Abbey, 2006). Rachel loves making movies, but in her free time, she’d rather play Ultimate Frisbee.

Rachel McAdams is viewed as a role model to some people and a great actress, too, because of her movies, The Notebook and Wedding Crashers. Her decision to be an actress has brung her many friends, memories, and fame. This Canadian actress will be remembered for a long time.

References

1. Abbey, C. (2006). The Journey of Rachel McAdams. Toronto: Canadian Film Magazine.
2. Casey, L. (2018). Rachel McAdams: A Career Retrospective. Los Angeles: Silver Screen Insights.
3. InfoTrac Newsstand. (2018). Rachel McAdams: A love for comedy. Retrieved from InfoTrac Newsstand database.

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