Love, unabashedly

Warner Books enclosed a pack of tissues with the promotional materials for Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 novel, “The Notebook,” the tale of a star-crossed couple from opposite sides of the tracks unexpectedly reunited after World War II. A tear-jerker, and proud of it, the book overcame a spate of reviews calling it saccharine and formulaic, selling 850,000 copies in hardback alone.

Still, a classic “weepy” -- even one with a track record -- was no easy sell in blockbuster-driven Hollywood. (Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks SKG turned it down before it was picked up by New Line Cinema.) And it may be a marketing challenge this summer: a $30-million period piece pitted against releases such as “The Terminal,” a Steven Spielberg drama with Tom Hanks, and the formidable “Spider-Man 2.” Lacking the star power of the former and the special effects of the latter, the film, which opens June 25, is the ultimate in summer counterprogramming.

Directed by Nick Cassavetes (“She’s So Lovely”), the movie frames the action in a nursing home, where Noah (James Garner) reads stories from a faded notebook to Allie (Gena Rowlands), a patient suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. His words help her recall their teenage passion and tumultuous years during which friends and family died and value systems were called into question. Love, rather than external success, the film suggests, is the measure of a life well-lived.

Mark Johnson (“Rain Man”) acquired the material pre-publication, intrigued by the story of a man who, even in old age, woos his love anew every day. “ ‘The Notebook’ is an old-fashioned romance -- a rare breed these days,” he says. “Audiences love love stories. The reason ‘Titanic’ worked so well wasn’t because of the computer graphic shots of the ship going down. ‘The Notebook’ has the impact of a ‘Bridges of Madison County.’ It’s no accident that it was on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year.”

Johnson, who produced the film with former New Line executive Lynn Harris, saw the film through several incarnations in its eight-year journey to the screen. Spielberg and Martin Campbell (“GoldenEye”) once planned to be at the helm, and Jim Sheridan (“My Left Foot”) was “attached” for a few years. New Line suggested Cassavetes after he delivered the hit “John Q.”

Ashley Judd was lined up at one point for the female lead, for which a host of well-known actresses (as well as Britney Spears) auditioned. Ultimately, though, the starring roles went to two up-and-comers (Rachel McAdams and “The Believer’s” Ryan Gosling) with an ensemble cast comprising Garner, Rowlands, Joan Allen and Sam Shepard boosting the movie’s profile.

“Initially, I asked my agent whether it was a script for a television movie,” Garner recalls. “A theatrical film doesn’t get made these days unless you blow up a continent in the first reel -- which is why I’ve stopped going. ‘The Notebook’ touches people, dealing with love, change, loss. Still, Nick is brave to take on a project sure to trigger charges of sentimentality.”

A thumping by critics

Cassavetes knows that full well. Two years ago, critics trashed his “John Q” -- the tale of a father (Denzel Washington) who takes hostages to get medical care for his son -- labeling it cloying and manipulative. Rather than making a course correction, the 44-year-old director notes with a grin, he’s gone for sentiment again. As the son of independent film legend John Cassavetes, the predisposition is certainly not inherited, however. With films such as “Shadows” and “Faces” to his credit, his father was a pioneer in American realism. Raw, crude, strident, at times, his work was cinema verite in feel.

“At first, I couldn’t believe I’d accepted this assignment,” Cassavetes concedes over breakfast at the Polo Lounge. “Usually, I make darker films about Lithuanian albino dwarfs. Still, in the end, all of my films are about love. ‘Unhook the Stars’ [1996] dealt with an aging woman trying to hang on to the love of her daughter, ‘She’s So Lovely’ [1997] with a couple passionate to the point of self-destruction, and ‘John Q’ with a father-son bond.”

That Cassavetes is in a “very happy place” has fed this obsession, observes Rowlands, who’s also his mother. A divorced father of two, the director is engaged to actress Heather “Queenie” Wahlquist, with whom he’s expecting a daughter in May. Despite the New York edge and shoot-from-the-hip style, Cassavetes calls himself a “big romantic.”

“I like my love tragic and exciting,” he says. “Noah was a master of the grand gesture. He built a house for Allie and waited seven years for her to come back. If you don’t feel sappy about love, you’re not being honest, or you’re a cold-blooded lizard with whom I have little in common. “

To anchor an idealized relationship in reality and avoid a made-for-TV movie tone, Cassavetes, a screenwriter himself (“Blow”), took a pass at the screenplay he inherited. Changing the first half of the script (which was ultimately credited to Jeremy Leven), he had the couple argue after getting back together. (“Nice, polite relationships don’t conform to my experience.”)

He also changed the locale from a seaside village to a Southern city (the movie was shot in Charleston, S.C.) -- reflecting his own urban roots. Instead of strolling lakeside, the characters walk -- and dance -- in the streets, he explains. Finally, he hired the most “realistic” actors he could, instructing them to chuck any material that didn’t ring of the truth.

“By the way, I like TV movies,” Cassavetes explains unapologetically. “But if you’re not brutally honest and willing to fail, your movie will be a stinker -- guaranteed. In the end, I’m proud of this one, which reflects what I feel about love ... most of the time.”

Casting two of his favorite actors -- Allen (“The Contender”) and playwright Shepard (“Buried Child”) -- is one of the perks of directing, he says. And Rowlands is always his first stop when a suitable part emerges. (“Any excuse for quality time with my mother.”) Though she has already appeared in two of his films, some arm-twisting was needed this time around.

“My mother, Lady, died of Alzheimer’s disease in 1998,” Rowlands explains. “Though some things never get ‘put away,’ I knew I’d be OK in Nick’s hands. There’s no pressure or tension on his set, and he has the best sense of humor. Besides, the concept of the movie is so startling: older people and romance.”

His first scene with Rowlands sticks in Garner’s mind. “I heard Nick yell, ‘Cameras, action ... Mom,’ ” the actor says. “It broke me up. The first take didn’t go very well. Though it never interfered, you could see the mother-son thing. Nick was always a little more concerned with what Mama looked like.”

Rowlands too was taken aback at the term of endearment. “Nick was so tall and mature he started calling me ‘Gena’ at the age of 12,” she recalls. “I never expected him to call me ‘Mother’ on the movie. And I know he wouldn’t want to show any favoritism -- even though he should.”

How would his iconoclastic dad have reacted to his latest film -- a project resembling “Love Story” more than his edgy “A Woman Under the Influence”? As a filmmaker, his father might have been dismissive, Cassavetes admits.

“No movies but his own spoke to him -- he was really a piece of work.” But, adds the director, “John would have liked ‘The Notebook’ because he liked me.”

It’s easy to poke holes in “The Notebook,” he says. “But if you don’t like it, you’re thinking too much, missing the forest for the trees.”

Audiences have voted with their hankies. According to Johnson, “The Notebook” has tested better than any of his previous films, which besides the Oscar-winning “Rain Man” include “Good Morning, Vietnam.”

“All the sniffles at the press screenings took me by surprise,” he says. “Those cynical, embattled journalists, I found, really do have hearts.”