Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams star in this sweeping romantic drama based on Nicholas Sparks' novel. In the present day, an elderly man named Duke (James Garner) reads from a faded notebook to a woman (Gena Rowlands) whom he regularly visits at her nursing home. He reads a passionate love story about a young couple - Noah Calhoun and Allie Hamilton (Gosling and McAdams) - who fall in love in a small coastal town in South Carolina in the 1940s. However, their fledgling love affair is abruptly ended by the intervention of Allie's parents and the sudden outbreak of war. But although fate drives the young couple apart, they continue to be haunted by memories of their affair, and when Noah returns from the war seven years later, he realises that he cannot forget the promises they made to one other - despite the fact that Allie is engaged to be married to another man.