by JOANNE LATIMER

Sexual chemistry saves the day, almost. The flesh factor between actors Rachel McAdams (Mean Girls) and Ryan Gosling (The United States of Leland) is the only thing that makes The Notebook - a sappy story about forbidden love - even remotely watchable. When casting directors and producers get together to pair off actors, they dream about this kind of magic between their leads. And they're both from Ontario! Shame about the connect-the-dots predictability that surrounds their stolen kisses.

When does it all go wrong? Early. Noah (Gosling) is a country boy from the wrong side of the tracks, while Allie (McAdams) is a city gal with a pedigree. So, no points for creativity. There must be a software option in Final Draft that pumps out this plot set-up.

Noah wins Allie over with headstrong antics, while she goes about being a bad little rich girl. They're all over each other, which is fun to watch. Summer love never looked so good. Then, Allie's killjoy family lowers the boom and sends her back to the city early before shipping her off to college in New York. World War II intervenes, just barely making an impact on the story, and Allie lands a silverspoon fiancé. Will she boomerang back to the broken-hearted Noah? Of course. The film is, after all, based on the Nicholas Sparks book of the same name.

Director Nick Cassavetes structures the film along two timelines, bouncing back and forth between the 1940s and the present day. He got his mom, Gena Rowlands, to star as the elderly Allie, and James Garner plays the older version of Noah. Rowlands' character has senile dementia and cannot always remember her own teenage love history. The senior Noah reads to Allie from a book, pretending it's fiction, so she'll remember their shared past. Sometimes the trick works, sometimes not. The contemporary scenes in the old-age home are punishingly sad, building to a Shakespearean ending. Crybabies will need to bring Kleenex.

The Notebook opens Friday, June 25

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