CULTURE

Netflix U.K. Changed The Notebook‘s Ending and Twitter Is Upset

Users are threatening to unsubscribe over the snafu.

by Andrea Park

THE NOTEBOOK, Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, 2004, (c) New Line/courtesy Everett Collection
New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection

By now, you’ve had 15 years to see The Notebook, so it’s not really a spoiler to reveal that Noah and Allie both die in the end. At least, they do in the original version of the film—but a slightly altered version is now available on Netflix U.K. that cuts a crucial part of the ending, making the film that much less poignant, and leaving viewers outraged at the streaming service’s audacity in rewriting (cinematic) history.

To recap: While The Notebook is often remembered as a sweet love story between Ryan Gosling‘s Noah and Rachel McAdams‘s Allie, those scenes are merely flashbacks, as a much older Noah (James Garner) retells their love story to Allie (Gena Rowlands), now suffering from dementia, every day in their nursing home. At the end of the movie, Allie has a moment of clarity and is able to remember Noah and their story. “Do you think our love could take us away together?” she asks Noah, who replies, “I think our love can do anything we want it to do.” He climbs into bed with her, they exchange their final goodbyes, and the next morning, a nurse comes in to find that they’ve both passed away in their sleep.

In the revised version currently airing on Netflix U.K., however, the nurse’s discovery has been cut, so the movie ends with Noah whispering, “Bye, I’ll be seeing you,” making it unclear whether he and Allie did die at the same time like they wanted to, or if they simply woke up the next morning, with Allie’s memory gone and Noah tasked with rereading their love story to her out of the titular notebook yet again.

Fans of the pure, bittersweet ending were understandably outraged, with some even threatening to cancel their Netflix subscriptions over the unwanted tweak.

Expect a renewal in this outrage to come on or around March 15, when The Notebook arrives on Netflix U.S. Though the streaming service hasn’t shared which version Americans will be getting, some have speculated that it will indeed include the newer, much less definitive ending—that is, as long as there’s not a choose-your-own-adventure, Bandersnatch-esque option in the works.

Related: The Notebook Is Being Rebooted as a Broadway Musical, Like Every Other Classic