I’ve never understood why people enjoy Larry King’s interviews so much. He seems to take pride in not doing any research about his guests and that often leads to some of the most senseless questions I’ve ever heard. During the U.S. Open tennis tournament a couple of months ago, he asked Andre Agassi if playing on different tennis surfaces mattered, and if so, how? Wow.
To some degree, I’m a lot like Larry King when it comes to my knowledge about the lives of celebrities. I know next to nothing about most of them, and I don’t have an insatiable appetite to go exploring. It just doesn’t interest me. But when a friend e-mailed me yesterday to ask me if I’d heard that Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams were dating (my friend knows I’m a huge fan of The Notebook—in which Gosling and McAdams acted), I had a desire to know more, I just didn’t have a lot of time to go looking for it.
So, I’m not even sure if they are still together, but their on-screen chemistry was amazing in The Notebook. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but the romantic in me can’t help but wonder if their apparent true-life romance is mirroring art. The two characters they portrayed, Noah Calhoun and Allie Hamilton, were so devoted to each other in marriage, in sickness and in health, that they moved movie-goers all across the country to tears. The final scene is so moving that I struggle for words for several minutes every time I see it.
Sometimes a movie, book, painting, or some other work of art becomes bigger than its creator ever imagined. He or she found a way to capture a small, identifiable, relatable snapshot of humanity that moves people so much that the work of art becomes a point of reference. The Notebook was one of those movies (and novels) on the subject of true love. And now that Gosling and McAdams are together, it makes me wonder if they weren’t just as moved as we were by the story’s powerful portrayal of selfless, sacrificial love that overcame everything.
