Literacy lives

Librarians everywhere should celebrate the release of “The Notebook.” The film may seem a routine tale of star-crossed sweethearts, but more than anything else it’s an ode to literacy.

Much like an awkward but well-intentioned suitor, the movie inspires affection despite its overwrought script and occasionally clunky staging. It centers on a turbulent summer tryst, circa 1940, between a moneyed Southern belle (Rachel McAdams) and a worker (Ryan Gosling). Serving as present-day narrator is an aged romantic (James Garner), who reads the love story to a woman battling dementia (Gena Rowlands).

There are problems of tone and plausibility throughout.

Yet somehow, “The Notebook” is still a cinematic page-turner. A laughably inept scene is followed by one of sheer pagan beauty. While the film won’t move some to tears, at the very least it should motivate some to visit the library.