Nights in Rodanthe Review

Based on yet another novel by The Notebook’s Nicholas Sparks (the new king of romance) Rodanthe’s story is a simple but touching one. Adrienne Willis (Lane) escapes to Rodanthe in the Outer Banks of North Carolina to take care of a friend’s inn for the weekend and fret over the fact her wayward husband wants to come back. Almost as soon as she gets to this small coastal town a major storm is forecast–and the only guest for that weekend Dr. Paul Flanner (Gere) arrives. He’s there with his own issues to work out. Quite a fun pair these two make but they end up helping each other work through their problems. And as the storm closes in they finally succumb to their attractions. Soon it becomes a magical weekend for them both and sets in motion a life-changing romance. Lane and Gere have had quite a progression in their onscreen pairings. They first played reckless young lovers in Cotton Club at the beginning of their careers teaming up again much later as a long-married couple in Unfaithful which saw Lane stray from her leading man. Now with Rodanthe it seems a fitting denouement to their evolution as Hollywood’s favorite onscreen couple; they fall in love all over again but this time with a world of experience. The two actors truly have a certain something together which makes a fairly sappy story more poignant. Also good is Mae Whitman (HBO’s In Treatment) as Adrienne’s surly teenage daughter who at first hates her mom for not getting back with her dad but then comes to understand Adrienne in new and more profound ways. She and Lane have some nice moments together. Director George C. Wolf (Lackawanna Blues) understands his material and handles it with delicate strokes. Of course shooting in the Outer Banks can’t be a bad way to go with it’s gorgeous beach vistas. And the house they found to represent the inn is one of a kind which oddly enough is located in the real town of Rodanthe. Imagine that. Maybe one drawback to Rodanthe is its limited appeal. The Notebook had the younger audiences enthralled with the flashback romance between the fetching Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling while the older audiences identified with the James Garner and Gena Rowlands characters. Rodanthe is strictly for the older set but I find this refreshing in the fact it IS a modern-day romance between two mature people. Just don’t know how much of a reach it will have.