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Movie review: “Nights in Rodanthe”
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
As the barometric pressure drops ahead of a tropical storm poised to batter a bed and breakfast inn on an island off the North Carolina coast, the passions rise for two lonely, guilt-ridden people in “Nights in Rodanthe,” the multi-hanky romantic drama from director George C. Wolfe.
He’s a divorced surgeon facing a malpractice suit, who hasn’t been in touch with his doctor son in two years.
She’s a mother of two, struggling with the decision to file for divorce from a man who cheated, but now claims he loves her and wants a second chance.
Paul Flanner (Richard Gere) and Adrienne Willis (Diane Lane) are the only inhabitants of the Rodanthe Inn. She is filling-in for the owner: Adrienne’s level-headed best friend, who thought about closing the place while she went off on vacation, but Flanner was willing to pay double the off-season rates.
He is at the inn for the solitude, not for the beach, as he mentally prepares to go into town and face the husband of the woman who died on Flanner’s table during a routine cyst-removal operation. His first contact with the family does not go well and Paul returns to the inn angry and frustrated.
As the wind starts to churn, so do the feelings of Paul and Adrienne as they begin unloading with wine and candlelight about their similar miseries regarding spouses and children. Adrienne’s teenage daughter is scared and furious at her mom. Paul’s twenty-eight-year old son moved to Ecuador to open a clinic to get away from his over-bearing father.
After riding out the storm in each other’s arms, the couple begin to let the pieces of their lives fall into a more harmonious and honest place, even as they are falling in love.
He is convinced it’s right to go and bring his son home. She is convinced that divorce is the right answer for her. But, the decisions certainly mean separation.
“As long as it takes,” Adrienne bravely tells Paul as they cling to each other in one last, long embrace. Cue the violins and try to ignore your hunch that fate has something besides happily-ever-after in store for these two.
Lonely women expecting ninety minutes of transporting ecstasy will be let down. There isn’t much heat between Gere and Lane, this their third co-starring film (“Unfaithful” and “The Cotton Club” being the others).
Two emotional high points with real acting chops are the scenes where Scott Glenn as the dead woman’s husband lets the doctor know that was a human being on the operating table; and where Lane clutches a final letter from her lover to her heart. Not a high point of two veteran actors’ careers, but a solid effort.
Rated PG-13 for sexual content.
