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Unfaithful co-stars Gere and Lane re-team for this adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel about two troubled souls who spend a weekend alone in a North Carolina inn. She is dealing with a wayward husband and resentful daughter, while he is coping with an estranged son and the accidental death of one of his patients. Over the course of a few eventful days, they fall in love and fix all of life’s problems.

The Details

Nights in Rodanthe

Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Christopher Meloni.

Directed by George C. Wolfe.

Rated PG-13.

Opens Friday.

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Nights in Rodanthe

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Gere is brooding and stone-faced as usual, so much so that the few times the screenplay requires him to emote it comes off as melodramatic. Fortunately Lane adds some welcome life and spontaneity to the proceedings. Admittedly, it’s a romantic narrative concept, but unless you are already smitten with the two leads before the movie begins, little happens onscreen to suggest any genuine passion being kindled.

Further complicating matters is some heavy-handed symbolism involving a storm and some wild horses, as well as radical shifts in several supplementary characters for no apparent reason other than to satisfy the machinations of the manipulative plot. At least they don’t kill off Lane’s character halfway through the film.