The Notebook
New Line Cinema | Release Date: June 25, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
15
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
A lovely surprise. Ripe with feeling and lush with physical beauty, it's a love story that swings confidently between age and youth, and, like the young Tiger Woods of old, avoids every trap along the way.
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The director is Nick Cassavetes, son of Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes, and perhaps his instinctive feeling for his mother helped him find the way past soap opera in the direction of truth. Read full review
80
Dallas ObserverLuke Y. Thompson
If you're the sort who enjoys shedding such in darkened theaters, your must-see summer movie has arrived. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
May be corny, but it's also absorbing, sweet and powerfully acted. It's a film about falling in love and looking back on it, and it avoids many of the genre's syrupy dangers. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
An old-fashioned and occasionally schmaltzy movie that delivers an emotional wallop Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
The Notebook is well worth the risk of diabetic shock for the sake of superb acting that transcends its teary milieu. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen Holden
The scenes between the young lovers confronting adult authority have the same seething tension and lurking hysteria that the young Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood brought more than 40 years ago to their roles in "Splendor in the Grass." Read full review
70
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Audiences craving big, gooey over-the-top romance have their must-see summer movie in The Notebook. Read full review
70
Film ThreatPeter Lowry
Overall, The Notebook is a surprisingly good film that manages to succeed where many other "chick flick" like romances fail. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
What a glorious weepie The Notebook might have been if they’d just found a way to get rid of the damned notebook. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Doesn't completely work on its own terms, mainly because its romantic casting just doesn't spark: It doesn't make us fall in love with its lovers. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Sadly, the elements that made the book special did not survive the transition to the screen. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
We get pleasure watching two sets of likeable, convincing actors move toward their foreordained futures. The film's affecting ending proves familiarity needn't breed contempt, after all. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Dramatically speaking, the movie version of The Notebook has a first act and a last act but lacks a transition. If it were a sandwich, it would be two slices of bread without filling. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Considering the sunny, relatively pleasurable romantic business that precedes it, the elderly stuff seems dark, morbid, and forced upon us. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
A gifted cast was bogged down by a treacly tale. Read full review
60
VarietyRobert Koehler
A determined and often affecting romance that doesn't speak down to audiences. Read full review
60
Village VoiceJessica Winter
Amid the sticky-sweet swamp of Jeremy Leven's script, Rowlands and Garner emerge spotless and beatific, lending a magnanimous credibility to their scenes together. These two old pros slice cleanly through the thicket of sap-weeping dialogue and contrivance, locating the terror and desolation wrought by the cruel betrayals of a failing mind. Read full review
60
Washington PostDesson Thomson
May be one hundred percent sap, but its spirit is anything but cloying, thanks to persuasive performances, most notably from Rachel McAdams. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
You know what you want to see if you want to see The Notebook...You want to see girls in pretty 1940s dresses, soldiers in stirring World War II uniforms, handsome automobiles and equally handsome Southern landscapes. You want to see romance overcome adversity. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Rowlands is superb, as usual, and Garner partners her with the grace of a dancer. Cassavetes's directing style is slow and stilted, though, indicating yet again that his notion of moviemaking is the opposite of everything his father, the great John Cassavetes, stood for. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
You won't necessarily applaud The Notebook's excesses, but its final moments of grace will leave you in a sodden heap on the theater floor. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
The connection between the two narratives is supposed to be a big, heartbreaking surprise, though I figured it out well in advance and spent the interim unfavorably comparing this greatest-generation hanky wringer to the British drama "Iris." Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
Cassavetes isn't much of a director and he never settles on a mood, which he seems intent on ruining with hiccups of goofiness. But there's an underlying humanity to his scenes, a sense that movies are made by people for other people. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineAngel Cohn
Cassavetes' film is unusually well-acted and lovely to look at, but his wholehearted embrace of saccharine melodrama and tendency to let scenes ramble on long after their point has been expressed makes for some slow going. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
To their credit, director Nick Cassavetes and screenwriter Jeremy Leven heighten the melodrama and seize on the most distinctive strokes of Nicholas Sparks' bland best seller. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
The Notebook is meant to be a romantic weepy, and you will shed tears - but only from the consistent and exhausting effort of trying to control your gag reflex. Even a body that welcomes a sugar fix will repel a sugar invasion. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Hs a single goal: to prod your tear ducts to open up. It is very, very good at this task. Whether The Notebook is good in any other respect is a bit more complicated. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
Mercilessly plodding pacing, problematic character motivations and a fundamental lack of chemistry between the two star-crossed lovers in question don't do a lot to help its cause. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Opening shots tend to say a lot about a movie, but they say everything about The Notebook, a glossy adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' four-hanky sudser. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
From the first soft piano that accompanies white geese flying toward a humongous orange sunset, The Notebook racks up the sugary clichés till you’re screaming for mercy. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
I have the same allergic reaction to this open faucet of tear-jerking swill as I do to the 1996 Nicholas Sparks novel that inspired it. Read full review
25
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Two hours of the worst sort of sentimental sap. Read full review
20
SalonCharles Taylor
The movie not only approaches a level of shamelessness you have to see to disbelieve, it does it in a manner that's both inept and crass. Read full review
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