[sp]I did like the movie, I really did. I loved the scenes where John and Savannah were happy, and I honestly did love any scenes with them. I wanted more with them though. I wanted more talks, more kisses, more handholds, more emotion. I feel like by cutting out John's second leave, when they spent another two weeks together at her apartment - we were missing something. Because honestly, these two were only apart for like less than year before she wrote him about being with Tim. That just aggravated me a good amount. And I didn't understand, in the movie, how it happened with Tim. We couldn't clearly see Tim was in love with her, or that they were even that good of friends. And I hated how Savannah was engaged already to Tim, after how long - 2 months of not writing? Or when did Tim even get sick, before 9/11? But that would be so silly, because at that time they were sending letters to each other all the time. The timeline was just royally screwed up. If the Notebook can do an accurate timeline, I expected this movie to do so too.
I loved Savannah so much, but I completely agree about how they hardly focused on her storyline of wanted to major in psychology, the horse place, Alan - which is not his son, and how she was inspired by Tim's help with Alan and the horses -, and just her general ambition. That was her hope and desire. And I hated how the camp had failed, that just angered me. But again, it always angered me how quickly she fell in love with Tim, stopped writing John, and just everything. The timeline pissed me off.
And the ending. Now when I read the book - I was PISSED. I wanted them to end up together because it was so clear that even though Savannah truly loved Tim, that she was so madly in love with John. I wanted John to be happy, especially after losing his Father (which was done beautifully in the movie, but still not as amazingly as the book), and I wanted them to be happy. But now after seeing the movie, I understand and love the book's ending so much more. First off, them ending up together in the movie - it was so rushed. Well, we don't know technically if they did, but why wouldn't they be together now? I mean, I love the idea of them seeing each other again years later and then finally just falling into each other's arms. It's lovely. But that wasn't the point of the movie/book. The book was about loving someone so much, you would give up your own happiness. That was the entire point of the book. So in the book, by John letting Savannah be with Tim and just wanting her to be happy - it was so moving. And the idea that they still loved each other, and watched the movie - absolutely heartbreaking and beautiful. So yeah, the movie missed that and kind of made them into another romance. Oh wells.
So I did like the movie, will see it again, and probably like it more the second time. I didn't like the Notebook all that much the first couple of times I saw it either. It took me years for me to fall in love with it. Now I can't decide if I love AWTR or TNB more. [/sp]
