Technically speaking, the film’s color palette is gorgeous, and appropriate. Set in a beach town beautiful in its simplicity and untouched landscape, the colors of sand and sea echo throughout the film. The palette consists of blue, brown, beige, white, and amber for the most part. During the storm sequence, those colors all darken. Technical effects in that sequence are brilliant. Music adds texture to the story — Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith, Count Basie, as well as some bluegrass and folk music. My favorite scene was the post-hurricane party scene, though I failed to find out who the musicians on the bandstand were. They seemed like local talent. I’d really like to know. The soundtrack, and the film score, are worth buying, and the movie itself is worth seeing. Just don’t expect a love story. Not a light and airy one, at least.
It’s a life story. It’s what happens when a force of nature comes and rips life apart. As the storm clears, the choices we make define who we are. Everything up until then can seem like a rehearsal for those defining moments. Few things are as galvanizing as a cataclysmic event. So it is for Paul and Adrienne. She can overlook his anger and arrogance and fear; he can overlook her timidity. Like the driftwood that washes ashore on the beach, which local women fashion into art, the pair become “more beautiful for the twisted scars” as Adrienne describes the driftwood keepsake boxes. In her gentle hands Paul can find his lost grace; in his honest accounting of her self-deception, she can find her true nature.
In the end, nature drives this story; human nature is only a small part of it. In the end, it is our souls we must account to, their purity and their dignity. They deserve to be followed or simply watched in awe. There is only one life, and it’s best lived wild and free as the horses of this fragile island. In a moment it can be swept away, so live every moment with that in mind. That is the message of Nights in Rodanthe. That is what’s unsaid in the spaces of that photo album we can’t help staring at, or the images comprising this strangely compelling movie.
Article comments
1 - marc james
I loved this movie! Diane Lane was superb!