One of my favorite psychological phenomena popularized by the internet is “The Mandela Effect.” Essentially, it’s a specific false memory somehow shared by a group of people. It’s named for Nelson Mandela, a South African freedom fighter whom many “remember” dying in prison in the 1980s (he didn’t; he died in 2013 after serving as President of South Africa throughout most of the 1990s). Other examples include the release of a movie called Shazaam starring comedian Sinbad (it doesn’t exist) and the Fruit of the Loom logo including a cornucopia (there’s no cornucopia… I know, that one gets me, too). But did we Mandela Effect the end of The Notebook?
It’s a question TikTok user @radiusofaurora posed in a video.
“This is either a Mandela Effect or Hollywood purposely messing with our minds,” she begins. “If you saw The Notebook back when we were, like, 10 years old and fell in love with it and watched it 800 times back then, but then didn’t watch it again for another 15 years, aka about a month ago, tell me I’m wrong about the ending. I dare you to tell me I’m wrong.”
She goes on to explain that she remembers Allie, who has dementia, and her devoted husband Noah dying together in one another’s arms after one final moment of remembrance and clarity from Allie.
“They both die in that bed that night,” @radiusofaurora insists. “That is the version I remember seeing back when I as a little teeny bopper.”
But after watching the movie recently, she says, there’s no dramatic death scene.
“Neither of them died,” she says. “I don’t even think he went to her room. They just kind of woke up and were like ‘well now what?’ This ending did not stick with me at all because a) I knew it was wrong and b) it was so unmemorable, but I need somebody to tell me I’m right about this!”
Great news: you’re right. The original movie does end with the pair being discovered by a nurse, dead and holding hands in bed together.
Apparently this confusion can date back to as early as 2019 when Netflix UK’s version of The Notebook ended not with the couple’s death but with the two reconnecting in Allie’s room before cutting to birds flying over a lake. The birds are, indeed, the last shot in the original film as well, but it seems the UK’s Netflix version as well as, some report, Max’s version of the film (the one @radiusofaurora says she watched) left out that one last heartbreaking scene.
So is Hollywood intentionally messing with our minds for funsies?
It would seem not.
Back in 2019, when this issue originally occurred, Netflix UK tweeted out that they were not responsible for the change. “An alternative version exists and was supplied to us,” they announced in a tweet. It wasn’t long before the original version was back up.
The best anyone can figure is that the alternative version, which omits the pair’s onscreen demise, was meant to be aired in countries where showing the dead couple would go against censorship codes. (This is not uncommon.)
But it would seem that the non-original ending is still out there and getting airtime in the good ol’ US of A. Don’t let that make you doubt your memories, folks! Noah and Allie did indeed die as they lived: melodramatically and together.
