Great Moments in Kissing: "The Notebook"
Tuesday, February 12, 2019 at 2:33PM Team Experience was asked to share their favourite screen kisses for Valentine's Day. Here's a longtime actress friend of TFE, new contributor Kim Rogers...
When Nathaniel put out the call for favorite movie kisses, my mind immediately went to The Notebook’s iconic kiss in the rain. The movie is full of great kisses, but the entire movie is building towards the scene where Noah and Allie kiss in the rain. There’s a reason it’s on the poster, y’all.
The entire lake adventure is tinged with a bittersweet sense of melancholy as Noah takes a now engaged Allie out to see a flock of swans that have taken up residence on his lake. Allie is every bit the proper woman her mother always wanted her to be with her perfect hair, red lipstick, and string of pearls. Allie and Noah have a loaded conversation about the swans (“They’ll go back to where they came from”) and they observe the differences in each other after seven years apart...
The sexual tension and longing simmers between them, but it’s only when they make their way back that things come to a boil. The heavens open and they are drenched by a storm; Allie’s once perfect hair is a mess and Noah just laughs. Allie tries to keep herself dry, but she eventually just gives herself over to the moment, laughing up at the sky. That’s when we see the impetuous teenager who fell in love with the boy from the wrong side of the tracks come back to us.
“Why didn’t you write me?” she demands, finally getting to the whole point of her visit. “It wasn’t over for me! I waited for you for seven years and now it’s too late!”
Listen, I know it’s become a bit of a parody in the fifteen years since the movie came out, but things become parody for a reason, because they resonated with the pop culture lexicon so much in their time. If your heart doesn’t stop when Ryan Gosling simply looks at Rachel McAdams, his white button-down completely drenched, and says “I wrote you three hundred and sixty five letters. I wrote you everyday for a year,” then I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe go see your cardiologist or something?
It wasn't over for me. It still isn't over."
...Noah protests. And then he grabs Allie, mid-protest and crashes their lips together, hauling her up in his arms and causing movie audiences everywhere to swoon. For me, the kiss is even more heightened knowing that Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling fell in love while making the movie. How could they not?
Who can forget the MTV Movie awards when they won Best Kiss and dramatically recreated this moment? Definitely not me, from the way that she tosses off her blazer and hikes up her bustier to the way Gosling gives her the “come here” motion like he’s freaking Johnny Castle or something. It’s a moment for the ages, and listen, I know they are both happy with other partners, but my heart will always root for McGosling to find their way back to each other. It’s not over for me. It still isn’t over.
❤️
Kim is an actress in New York and co-runs the TV website Head Over Feels. You can follow her on Instagram here.
Reader Comments (9)
Johnny Castle? The porn star? I'm dead.
@beyaccount - Johnny Castle was the name of Patrick Swayze’s character in ‘Dirty Dancing’ - the pornstar took his name from the film. ;)
The first time Elio and Oliver kiss made me smile. The last time they kiss made me cry. I love being gay.
Shameful confession: I have never seen THE NOTEBOOK.
They had great chemistry and who doesn't want to be kissed by Ryan Gosling?
WHAT?!!! Not even as a Gena Rowlands completist?
Omg, Nathaniel, me neither - thought I was the only one! But even I knew this kiss should & probably would be written up.
There is a small part of me that is a little sad Rachel and Ryan are no longer together.
They did patch up once before breaking up for good.
Somehow we r all so taken by their love on n offscreen, we can't accept tt the perfect couple is no longer a couple.
Well, to quote Casablanca, they will alws hav The Notebook ♥
Actually, according to the IMDB trivia Rachel and Ryan didn't initially get along during the making of this movie. Purportedly they fought a lot and Ryan said a number of uncomplimentary things about Rachel and even tried to get her fired. It got so bad that Cassavetes had to lock them in a room together and wouldn't let them out until they hashed out their differences so filming could continue.
I guess all that initial anger was just sublimated passion and lust!