The Notebook (2004) review

Notorious tear-jerker (based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks) has Duke (James Garner) telling his wife Allie (Gena Rowlands) the story of their lives together - from them meeting at an amusement park to him going off to war to her getting engaged to another man (James Marsden) - but because she suffers from dementia, she struggles to remember any of it.  Yes, it's shamelessly sentimental and yes it does everything it can to pull at the heart strings, but it is a solid film about the idealized power of love: Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams play them in their much younger years, and the chemistry between the two of them (despite rumors of off-screen animosity) is just completely magnetic.  It probably pushes too hard for some - and that ending is just a bit too much - but I'll confess: it got to me.