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I have a confession to make: I’ve never seen The Notebook. From what I’ve heard (at least from women), it’s supposedly the most touchingly beautiful movie ever made. So when I heard that another novel by Nicholas Sparks was being adapted into a movie (one starring Diane Lane and Richard Gere, no less!), I was eager to check it out—to see what all the fuss is about. But now that I’ve seen Nights in Rodanthe, I have another confession to make: I don’t get it.
Nights in Rodanthe is a tear-jerking drama about finding true love later in life. Adrienne Willis (Lane) is a mother of two who’s had a pretty tough year: her father died, her husband left her for another woman, and her teenage daughter turned on her. Now, in a surprising turn of events, her cheating husband, Jack (Christopher Meloni), has decided that he wants to come back. And while Adrienne knows it’s what her kids want, she’s not sure what she wants.
Still reeling from Jack’s announcement, Adrienne leaves for Rodanthe—to help her best friend, Jean (Viola Davis), by running Jean’s beachfront inn for a few days. During that time, she has just one guest—Dr. Paul Flanner (Gere). And as Adrienne and Paul battle storms that are brewing both outside the inn and in their own lives, they find comfort and support in one another.
When I walked into the theater to see Nights in Rodanthe, I fully expected to walk out sniffling and red-eyed. And I have a feeling that, had I read the novel on which it’s based, I would have sniffled my way through the end. I may have even shed some tears—as I’ve been known to do when reading a particularly moving novel. But the on-screen adaptation left me completely dry-eyed—because I just couldn’t make myself care about the characters.
Maybe my indifference had something to do with the fact that, having seen the film’s trailers (and knowing the genre as well as I do), I quickly figured out exactly how it would end. But I have a feeling that it had more to do with the film’s inability to fully develop the characters and their story. Both Adrienne and Paul are characters that we’ve seen too many times before: Adrienne is the unhappy woman who’s sacrificed her own dreams to be a good wife and mother, and Paul is the heartless doctor who just needs a good woman to turn his life around. Unfortunately, neither character is developed past the usual clichés, and that makes it difficult for the audience to connect to them—or to really feel the life-changing, earth-shattering love that supposedly blossoms over just a few days.
I like to think of myself as a pretty hopeless romantic—but I saw right through Nights in Rodanthe’s tricks. Yes, the setting is gorgeous and romantic. And I could see that, with more development, the story could have been beautiful and even moving. But, instead of taking the time to develop real characters and a real romance, director George C. Wolfe chose to rely on romance clichés and lots of long, meaningful glances to try to dupe the audience into crying. As a result, the film feels forced and obvious and excessively melodramatic—and it left me feeling cheated out of a good cry.
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