Film

Nicholas Sparks’s novels are to Harlequin romances as international coffees are to Nescafé: Marketed as having a little dash of class, they’re still ersatz java. With the odd exception of The Notebook (which was raised a notch by the quality of the cast), the film adaptations of Sparks’s books (Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember and now Nights in Rodanthe) share that artificially flavored, freeze-dried taste.

Emotionally guarded divorcée Adrienne (Lane) and troubled physician Paul (Gere) are brought together one fateful week when she agrees to house-sit a friend’s B and B on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, and he’s the only guest. The arrival of a hurricane leads this pair into each other’s arms (because the threat of imminent death is an aphrodisiac, at least in romances), and the healing commences. Adrienne has been burned by a cheating husband (Meloni) and Paul is, well…it’s hard to say what he is. The script suggests he’s arrogant and uncaring but ripe for reform with the help of a good woman. But Gere plays him with such imprecision that he comes off mostly as drowsy. Maybe he just needed something with a little more caffeine.