In theaters

THE NOTEBOOK, directed by Nick Cassavetes, written by Jeremy Leven and Jan Sardi, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, 120 minutes, rated PG-13.

Nick Cassavetes’ “The Notebook” is well-done, well-acted schmaltz, a beautifully shot melodrama that overcomes its contrivances by striking just the right romantic tone.

It’s chic and it’s stylish, a retro heartwarmer filled with likable characters whose story weaves around the lives of its two enormously charismatic young lovers. Their romance is threatened because of their class differences.

Jeremy Leven and Jan Sardi based their screenplay on the dewy bestseller by Nicholas Sparks, and they did a fine job of it, too, especially considering the ripe cornucopia from which it sprung.

Taking a cue from Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of Robert James Waller’s “The Bridges of Madison County,” Cassavetes takes the bones of Sparks’ tale and elevates it to trash art.

His film is divided into two stories, with its core mystery allegedly hinging on how those stories will collide. Only the dimmest of bulbs won’t figure it out within the first five minutes, so it’s good news that the movie’s success doesn’t rely on it.

The film opens in a swank nursing home with the elderly Duke (James Garner) reading to the elderly Allie Calhoun (Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes’ mother), a handsome yet frail-looking woman suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s. The story Duke shares with her is a romance set in 1940s North Carolina between working-class Noah (Ryan Gosling) and the wealthy Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams), who share a summer romance that blossoms into fierce first love.

As summer fades into fall, that love is threatened as Allie prepares to go off to college in New York and her mother, Anne (Joan Allen), works overtime to sever their relationship. She believes her daughter can find a better man in a better social class, and she succeeds in busting Noah and Allie apart. Years later, Allie becomes engaged to the wealthy and good-looking Lon (James Marsden), whose love for Allie is strong, but not exactly enough to satisfy her.

Indeed, on the eve of marriage, she seeks out Noah again, thus rekindling a romance that will promise to change her life forever if she has the courage to accept it.

All of this works better onscreen than its rote plot points suggest, particularly because of the unfailing charm of its talented cast. McAdams and Gosling are wonderful together – fresh and spontaneous – while Garner and the underused Rowlands make you pine for what can be lost in old age, and for what can be found. “The Notebook” could have gone wrong for many reasons. One need only look at the trite adaptations of Sparks’ other works – “Message in a Bottle,” “A Walk to Remember” – to see how. But Cassavetes, much like his father, the director John Cassavetes, knows about human relationships and he appreciates his actors, and that combination shows onscreen in the enormous respect he has for both.

Grade: B+

On video and DVD

COLD MOUNTAIN, written and directed by Anthony Minghella, 160 minutes, rated R.

Anthony Minghella’s “Cold Mountain,” based on Charles Frazier’s best-selling novel, is as big and as grand-looking as you expect, offering enough memorable moments to make the movie worth seeing, even if it ultimately comes up short.

In it, Nicole Kidman and Jude Law are Ada and Inman, Civil War sweethearts who connect romantically yet fleetingly – too fleetingly, really, to fully invest in their almost wordless bond – before they’re separated for years when Inman goes off to war.

When Inman is nearly killed in battle, he risks his life again by going AWOL. The movie chronicles his harrowing 300-mile journey back to Ada while paralleling Ada’s own bleak story.

Reeling from her father’s death, Ada is a vision of golden purity stuck high atop Cold Mountain, where she quickly learns that all the pretty skin and nice city manners in the world can’t fix the beloved family estate, which is falling into ruin.

Helping her is Renee Zellweger’s Ruby, a crowd-pleasing caricature who somersaults from the prairie to show Ada how to manage the manure, pull the heads of fowl, and generally give life to the movie. Zellweger does it too,winning an Academy Award in the process. If “Cold Mountain” isn’t as emotionally satisfying as it could have been, it’s because it occasionally seems one step removed from its main characters, as if you’re watching them through a looking glass. Kidman and Law share almost no screen time together and when their characters finally do reconnect, they generate almost no spark.

There are moments in “Cold Mountain” that are sufficiently ablaze, however, and make it a worthwhile diversion. The opening battle scene, for instance, is a gut-wrenching, sienna-drenched depiction of the 1864 Siege of

Petersburg, Va., and the scene in which an elderly healer (Eileen Atkins) gently kills one of her goats in order to nurse Inman back to health is unshakable. Ann Roth’s costume design is superb, as is John Seale’s cinematography and Dante Ferretti’s production design, which effectively turns Romania into North Carolina.

Grade: B

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 Bangor and WCSH 6 Portland, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.