I enjoy Diane Lane. I will tolerate schlock if she's in it. I knew what I was in for when I decided to see Nights in Rodanthe, although I was willing to pay only $6 for the "privilege." I expected to mock the usual romance-drama trappings, and I did. However, something else was even more ridiculous : the weather. (She, on the other, was her usual lovely self.)
What’s more implausible: a 43-year-old lady who looks naturally beautiful in Hollywood, or a hurricane with no category designation in 2008? The woman in question is Diane Lane, so the answer is the tempest that doesn’t cause beach erosion in the romance Nights in Rodanthe, the latest adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks best-seller (The Notebook, Message in a Bottle).
Lane and three-time co-star Richard Gere (they also worked together in The Cotton Club and Unfaithful) play Adrienne and Paul in what’s essentially a two-character drama - fitting, given that it’s directed by theater veteran Ge0rge C. Wolfe. Adrienne and Paul weather crises familial (both) and professional (him) as they fall in love while staying in a multistory North Carolina shore house - a vacation spot that somehow sustains no damage from the ‘cane with no name. Lane portrays Adrienne’s reawakening with her usual grounded earthiness, and she almost makes those clichéd voiceovers of letters tolerable. Gere is tasteful, albeit bland.
I’ve always wanted to retire to the Carolinas but fear living in a magnet for the likes of Hugos and Hannas. Maybe I should move to Rodanthe, as this movie implies even the worst gusts will leave my home pristine.
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1 comment:
Thank you for confirming that I was right in thinking that I did not want to see this - as much as I too like Diane Lane.
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