Nights in Rodanthe

In Hollywood’s rush to keep audiences under 30 sated, more mature viewers and characters have been edged out of the picture. The arrival of this fortysomething romance, adapted from a novel by Nicholas ‘The Notebook’ Sparks, prompts hopes of a good old-fashioned ‘woman’s picture’, but the experience is more like watching a glossier version of some synthetic afternoon telemovie. Oh dear.

The set-up: on a picturesque island off North Carolina, Adrienne (Diane Lane) is estranged from her husband, but under pressure from her kids to take him back. She wangles a weekend on her own to think things over and spends it looking after her friend’s bed and breakfast, where the only guest is troubled Dr Tanner (Richard Gere), and the forecast is for some very stormy weather.

What happens next is what you’d expect, as the two rattle around the house, share confidences, strike sparks and get progressively more windswept. The film’s astute enough to place conflicts between parenting and self-determination centre stage, yet, with dialogue of such toe-curling triteness it would shame a greeting card, it’s no wonder the performers are evidently more comfortable letting looks and body language spell out their hesitant attraction. Lane works so hard you wish she was in a better movie, but Broadway director George C Wolfe’s inexperience with visual storytelling makes everything go with a clunk. Shame.