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Nights in Rodanthe Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some sensuality) Genre: Drama, Romance Theater release: September 26, 2008 by Warner Brothers Directed by: George C. Wolfe Runtime: 1 hour 37 minutes Cast: Richard Gere (Dr. Paul Flanner), Diane Lane (Adrienne Willis), Viola Davis (Jean), Christopher Meloni (Jack Willis), Scott Glenn (Robert Torrelson), Mae Whitman (Amanda Willis) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Adrienne Willis (Diane Lane) is frazzled. Her cheating husband, Jack (Christopher Meloni), has left. Her angsty teenage daughter, Amanda (Mae Whitman), wishes she could. And now her soon-to-be ex wants a second chance to save their marriage. With this proposition on the table and the kids vacationing with Jack for the weekend, Adrienne heads to North Carolina's Outer Banks to look after her friend's inn—grateful for the chance to retreat and reconsider.

Her one guest for the weekend is Paul Flanner (Richard Gere), estranged from his wife and son—and a workaholic surgeon who recently lost a patient in a rare surgery glitch. He's in the area to meet with that patient's grieving husband, hoping to head off a lawsuit but really needing to offer both survivor and surgeon some healing closure.

As if driven by all the swirling emotions, a hurricane blows in, trapping Adrienne and Paul with their dilemmas—and with each other—in the rambling, gorgeous, almost mystical beach house. It's as if Nature itself is sending these two hurting souls straight into each other's arms for solace (read: impassioned sex).

Diane Lane as Adrienne

Problem is, their romance appears quicker than the storm does. At least with the storm, we first get some rain and strong winds; we watch it develop. Adrienne and Paul go from cordial, almost frosty, to cozy lovers in the span of one home-cooked salmon dinner and a few scenes of battening down the hatches. And how romantic can hammering down some shutters really be?

So, when Adrienne shows Paul a wooden box she made years ago to keep treasures safe and he asks, "Who keeps you safe?," this lovely comment seems to come from left field. It's as if the scriptwriters mined the best lines from the Nicholas Sparks novel on which this film is based but then failed to put these gems in the settings they deserve. So these lines wind up feeling random, disjointed, and forced.

And so when the requisite tragedy strikes toward the end of the flick (oh c'mon, did I really need a spoiler alert for that?), we're not invested enough to really care. In fact, I found myself feeling a tad offended that the film's creators thought it took so little emotional manipulation to dissolve me into tears.

Richard Gere as Paul

Lane and Gere do an admirable job with the thin plot they're given. Though at times Lane seems to attack her lines, adding unnecessary huffiness. And in a few scenes I really don't believe her as the mother of her two kids; their affection seems phony and forced.

Together, she and Gere come across more like seasoned lovers (no doubt a comfortableness forged during their time together in 1984's The Cotton Club and 2002's Unfaithful) than a new couple embarking on a "life-changing love." They have nice chemistry together, just not the chemistry the plot calls for.

When not in full-on love story mode, the plot circles around the topic of forgiveness several times. We watch Adrienne wrestle with whether or not she should forgive her ex-husband. He cheated on her and was absent when her father died, but do his new professions of remorse and love earn him a second chance? Paul seeks to explain his actions to a patient's surviving family member and to Paul's own son, a fellow surgeon with whom Paul is estranged. But he learns the hard way that explanations don't bring healing.

Surprise, surprise—Paul and Adrienne connect

The plot hints at a few other interesting themes—losing yourself in your life choices, reconsidering expectations, figuring out a midlife "second act"—but none of these are explored in earnest. Granted, part of that shortcoming is no doubt the challenge of shoehorning a full-length novel into an hour-and-a-half movie.

Besides Gere and Lane, the movie's main selling point (or detraction, based on your opinion about chick flicks) is the Sparks-penned story. He made millions cry at The Notebook, but garnered a more lukewarm response to Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember. For those paying attention, there seems to be a pretty regular Sparks formula: difficult circumstances, unlikely love, delirious joy, gut-wrenching tragedy, and redemptive moral. A formula isn't necessarily bad when it's executed well. Unfortunately, Nights in Rodanthe doesn't deliver. At best, consider a Blockbuster night with Rodanthe.

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