Movie Review: Nights In Rodanthe

Rodanthe. Sounds like someplace in a fairy tale. Nicholas Sparks, author of the novel the film is based upon, has said he chose the town partly because of its evocative name. And one does imagine a place exactly as it is in reality: isolated, surrounded by untouched beauty, but at peril of forces larger than life. It is a perfect setting for this film.

Rodanthe (Roh-DAN-thee) is a real place, a shoreline town on Hatteras, a small island off the North Carolina coast. It’s beautiful, but it sits squarely in hurricane territory. If this story is a fairy tale, it is a dark one. Somewhat, forgive the pun, grim. Then again, authentic fairy tales always contain darkness somewhere within, whether a life affirming story or a cautionary tale.

Nights in Rodanthe, a new film co-starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane, was filmed in and around its namesake location. This verisimilitude bleeds into the frames of film; that, and the co-stars’ long ‘real life’ friendship and working history infuse a reality that can’t be escaped. And it is a good thing, this anchoring which real locations and real relationships have lent. The rest of the film is as unreal as it can be. Unreal, but also poetic, unapologetically so. This is a film dealing in feelings, in symbols, and in fleeting images of the type one might glance in someone’s photo album. Before one can think to ask a question, someone turns the page. Something in the mystery keeps you looking in, and eventually, the questions drop, for the sheer joy of looking at every image in those frames. That is the feeling I have gotten looking through someone’s life history in a treasured photo album, and the same feeling is what one is left with after viewing this movie.

Nights in Rodanthe is Lane’s film. It isn’t that her acting is better than Gere’s, or that of the capable supporting cast. In fact, next to Gere’s subtlety, Lane can at times seem mannered, strange for a lifelong film actress. She at times seems almost stagey. Still, one tells oneself, her character is one who is not comfortable in her own skin. And, within the film, her suppressed hausfrau character is only acting the part of the hostess of this inn. The inn, central to this story, belongs to her best friend. Lane’s character has fled there to escape her selfish, unconcerned family. She’s fled a lifetime of self-denial. No, I say this is Lane’s movie because in the end, that photo album of imagery this film is comprised of belongs to Diane Lane’s character, Adrienne Willis. The arc of the story really is hers. Adrienne Willis is a woman who has spent her life changing to suit other people, running along after them to clean up their messes. And then, one day, she simply cannot do that any longer. And her story begins to change.

Article Author: Brandy

Visit Brandy's author page