After ‘Cotton Club’ and the steamy silver screen romance, ‘Unfaithful’, Richard Gere and Diane Lane once again ‘fall in love onscreen’ in yet another ‘marshmellowey’ cinematic product – ‘Nights in Rodanthe’. The most interesting part of this film - based on a novel by the popular author, Nicholas Spark - is that in spite being older than much of Hollywood’s most popular actors, neither Richard nor Diane have gone ‘under the knife’ to increase their popularity.

This particular movie adaptation, however, lacks precisely what it intends at: real emotion. Plunging from one cliche to another, the story is about Adrienne Willis (Diane Lane), a forty-something mother of two demanding children. She tries to ‘get away’ for a while so as to decide if she should part ways with her husband (Christopher Meloni). She meets Dr. Paul Flanner (Richard Gere) in a remote inn by the seaside, in Rodanthe, North Carolina. While a hurricane is on its way in the sky, a ‘storm’ is growing between the two too.

Heartache and a continuous serving of ‘over the top’ romance sketches a painful episode - it is amazing how two wonderful actors collapse into a series of fake and quite scary looking French kisses and such other cheap onscreen tricks.

Though the novel on its own sends out more intimacy, this film - trying to make the ridiculous look natural - actually succeeds in tracing out all of its highlights as pranks. The intent was to have nature’s forces unleashing, such as a herd of wild horses and an imminent storm, in an outline of picturesque locations. The result is clean cut, commercial, standard lines and predictable!

Sadly and ironically, all the movies based on Spark’s novels look like movies one has seen before. There is that weird feeling in the gut that one can accurately predict what is going to happen right from the word go.

All said and done there is no denying the fact that Richard and Diane both look great and natural. They are still making movies without being affected the least by the ageism many actors in Hollywood complain about. If Richard looks good at 59, Diane Lane looks amazing at 43, more so considering that she hasn’t had any work done!