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Rating: Between John Q and Alpha Dog, Nick Cassavetes tackled a story of pure emotions. The cast is not high-profile, but with names from a cinema of other times and some promising young talents, it is very well assorted: Gena Rowlands, James Garner, Ryan Gosling, and Rachel McAdams.
The film immediately strikes for its splendid cinematography, the initial image of a fiery red sunset with a beautiful backlit flight of wild ducks opens a love story with a thousand twists, of impossible loves due to social differences between a young man from the deep American South and a young woman from a well-off Midwest family.
An elderly gentleman (Garner) visits the room of an elderly lady (Rowlands) inside a nursing home. The lady seems overwhelmed by a dark ailment, and he is firmly convinced that his reading will make this lady feel better, who, amazed by the initiative of the kind gentleman, gladly accepts to listen to a story from another time, when World War II had not yet broken out, when two young people of different social ranks could have nothing in common, and when two teenagers would discover the force of passion.
The story told by the amiable old man has a young, a little brash young man (Gosling) working in a sawmill and a charming girl vacationing in the South (McAdams) as protagonists. The two, thanks to mutual friends, get to know each other, go out together, and begin a summer fling that quickly turns into the fabled First Love.
Hearing this story, the charming old lady seems to regain some peace and, not wanting to miss a single moment of the story, stays glued to the kind gentleman who continues to read her this manuscript.
As the young people's story progresses, as might be expected, family difficulties arise due to the strong class difference that will lead the girl's family to separate her from the young man and hide her in a gilded cage, from which she will lose all contact with her First True Love. Meanwhile, in the story of the two young people, a house, an old ruined estate, had come into play, where the young couple was about to have their first sexual encounter; the house is the brash young man's dream, who promises the girl that one day he will buy it, fix it up, and make it their love nest, dedicating a riverside room to offer her the best possible view for her paintings.
Here I stop recounting the story to avoid any other form of spoilers.
Garner, after the successful 80s series Rockford, proves once again up to the role he must play, while Rowlands seems a bit adrift, and honestly, in some instances, comes off as not very believable.
The positives are the two young actors: Rachel McAdams, whom I was convinced only made movies due to her good looks, proves incredibly believable in her assigned role and successfully conveys the typical adolescent problems regardless of the era in which they are set. The best of the cast, however, is Ryan Gosling. After wanting to forget he was part of the horrible TV series "Young Hercules," I appreciated him in various films, like "Fracture" or "Stay," even though the best remains the absurd "Lars and the Real Girl." The guy is definitely talented and in this film, once again shows all his versatility. Alongside Ben Foster, with whom I often confuse him, they will be the new generation to replace the overly popular Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise & Co. This is undoubtedly a very personal opinion, and as such, I believe it should be taken.
Cheers
"The story of our life, read it to me and I will come back to you"
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