Why Conform? 'Cause the movie's good!

So I finally broke down and watched the ever-present film, 'The Notebook.' It has been playing non-stop on HBO and Encore and after hearing about how great a movie it was and how mushy it was and after countless remarks of "best kiss in a film" (not to mention my friend Jennifer has been wanting to see it), I flipped the channel to endure another flimsy love story. Don't misunderstand me, I'm a love story fan like everyone else, it's just there is only so many times you can see TITANIC in a year before it loses its flavor so I figure, The Notebook can't be any better than that!

Boy was I in for a suprise! Exquisite costuming, beautiful story line, remarkable dialogue, and what a harrowing romance! My goodness, this guy spends his entire life trying to keep this girl and after he DOES get her, he ends up spending their last years together trying to KEEP her...not from life, or from another man, but from senile dementia which keeps snatching her away from him like some evil philanderer.

You've got to give it to the guy, even though he is a fictional character, he meets every single smidgeon of criteria that a woman really wants in a man. Someone who will pine for her, wait for her, keep his promises to her. Whatever it was that caused that immediate attraction for him, sure kept him on his toes! How often do we come across people in our lives like that? Those that teach us just as much as we teach them? Those that love us just as much as we love them? Those that save us just as much as we need to save them?

I'm the type that reads the book first. Then I analyze how much like the book the movie was. I did that with The Bone Collector (Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie) written by Jeff Deaver, Along Came a Spider (Morgan Freeman, Monica Potter) written by James Patterson, just to name a few. Despite that I'm an avid book reader, I am actually quite pleased with seeing the movie first. It gave me a better appreciation of the work that everyone put into it and watching with regards to the movie, instead of trying to figure out what the movie is changing about the book.

I'm an emotional person, as you all well know. So of course, there is not a dry eye in the room with Jennifer and I bawling by the end of the film. I didn't just not want to see the film because there's already so many love stories out there. I'm just not the type to conform. All the talk about how great a movie it was and everyone was seeing it and talking about it and loving it. It just made me want to not see it. Who cares what everyone thinks about it? I never watched Saved by the Bell, or Party of Five, or Friends when they were popular, either. Same thing with CSI. Am I afraid of conformation? Who the heck knows or cares. All I know is I am glad that I finally took a time out to watch this spectacular film.

With that said, I'm off to read the book...TheNotebook