Why Do We Love "The Notebook" When It’s Glorifying A Dysfunctional Relationship?

The Notebook tells the story of Noah (Ryan Gosling) and Allie’s (Rachel McAdams) romance as it starts in the 1940s and shows them as an elderly couple in the 21st century. The story is an emotional rollercoaster but often gets heat because it doesn’t portray a healthy romance.

Dr. Nicole LePera, known as @theholisticpsyc on Twitter and @the.holistic.psychologist on Instagram, tweeted, “Allie and Noah have a highly dysfunctional (relationship) from the start. Noah threatens to plummet to his death off of a Ferris wheel if she won’t go on a date with him. Allie has told him no multiple times and instead of respecting her boundaries, he continues to pressure her. After they break up he writes her a letter every day (without any response) for a year, which could be considered stalking. Allie later betrays her husband by going to visit Noah without his awareness. Noah pressures her to choose him and accuses her of being a gold digger in the process. The notebook glamorizes love as possession. Conditioning us to see ‘the chase’ as exciting instead of what it actually is: unsafe.”

This post reminded me of a discussion that I had with a close guy friend a few years ago. After a family member convinced him to watch The Notebook for the first time, he texted me to ask why so many women love the movie because he couldn’t help but think it romanticized an unhealthy relationship. I explained to him that I can now clearly see the red flags of possessiveness and infidelity that I missed as a teenager, but I still love the movie as much as I did when I first saw it.

Despite knowing the story is flawed, why are we so obsessed with The Notebook?

We Love Stories of Redemption

Both Noah and Allie are deeply flawed characters. This makes them more realistic and easier to root for because we can see ourselves (both the good and the bad) in them. From Noah obsessing over Allie to Allie cheating on her fiancé, we see both of them make plenty of mistakes throughout their relationship, but eventually, they end up together and happy. 

Though the romance is in the part of the story set in the mid-twentieth century, the modern timeline offers redemption. We see Noah and Allie as an elderly married couple with adult children and beautiful grandkids. Allie has Alzheimer’s, and Noah visits her at the nursing home to read her their love story that he kept in a notebook (you could possibly interpret this as him atoning for some of the mistakes he made early in their relationship) in hopes that she’ll remember him and the family they created. Seeing the beginning and the ending of Noah and Allie’s love story shows that they both redeemed themselves along the way and made a beautiful family together. It’s hard not to love a good redemption story, and Noah and Allie give us hope that even if we make mistakes, we can still have love and happiness.

We Love Seeing Couples Grow Old Together

Is there anything more romantic than a married couple growing old together? Whenever I see an older couple out in public (almost always at the bookstore), I always smile because I can’t help but think of how much they’ve been through together. Through the good and bad, they’ve made the conscious decision to stick it out because they truly love each other. To be honest, this aspect of the movie is my favorite part because it reminds me of how my grandparents loved each other until their last days.

Growing old together is the ultimate sign of a successful and happy marriage. It shows that Noah and Allie stuck by each other through thick and thin over the years, raised a family, and watched their children become parents. In the end, Noah loves Allie so much that he wants her to remember them as a couple in her final days as her battle with Alzheimer’s gets worse. His last wish is for her to remember him one last time. In the end (not sorry for the spoiler alert because who hasn’t seen The Notebook by now?), they die in each other’s arms. You could argue it’s a coincidence that they died together, but there’s something romantic about the thought that they couldn’t imagine living one single day without each other. 

We Need Some Drama in Fictional Romances

Let’s be honest for a second: Most movies don’t have healthy romances. While outlining this article, I wrote down three of my favorite romantic movies that portray healthy relationships: Pride and Prejudice, The Big Sick, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I realized that what all three of these movies had in common is that although the relationships are healthy, a good chunk of the story is about the obstacles the couples have to go through to be together in the end. There’s a reason why these movies show conflict more than the romantic happy ending – it’s more interesting. Real life can be boring; therefore, we crave drama in our entertainment.

This made me think of another one of my favorite fictional couples, Chuck and Blair from Gossip Girl. We all know their relationship is unhealthy, but it’s impossible not to root for them. We watch them grow through the seasons and still want them to end up together even while they do horrible things to each other. We’re well aware that we’d be concerned if our friend was in a relationship like this, but we can root for them because we know it’s not real. The same goes for Noah and Allie in The Notebook because, in the end, it’s fiction. As long as we know it’s not real and is actually unhealthy IRL, there’s nothing wrong with rooting for these couples to end up together.

Closing Thoughts

Nearly two decades after its initial release, many of us still love The Notebook. It’s one of the most beloved romantic movies of this century, and it’s possible to enjoy it while acknowledging that it portrays a dysfunctional relationship. As long as we acknowledge that it’s fictional, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the story.

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