'Nights in Rodanthe' review

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Emotions, desires and possible hurricanes rage around a North Carolina bed and breakfast, where stand-in keeper Adrienne (Diane Lane) contemplates going back with her husband (Christopher Meloni) while falling for the inn's only guest, divorced doctor Flanner (Richard Gere), who's coping with the loss of a patient. James Franco also stars as Flanner's estranged son.

Big question: Will the latest adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel, which re-teams "Unfaithful" co-stars Lane and Gere, be beloved like "The Notebook" or just immensely, unconvincingly sappy like "A Walk to Remember"?

Skip it: Until movie theaters offer the same comforting, carefree mindset as sand and surf, beach reading won't truly translate to the big screen. "Rodanthe" offers not a grain of imagination or surprise, just a familiar, melodramatic tragi-fantasy that, at least, resists cuing the strings and pumping up the tear-jerking too often.

Catch it: To see the pair discuss that, even if you're preparing for a hurricane, there's just no excuse to have lard and succotash stored away in the pantry. Though it's a decent way to fight off hunger in desperate (or non-desperate) times.

Bottom line: There's something to be said about a well-acted demonstration of real love that's soapy but true and certainly preferable to the sticky stuff in most other pre-packaged, insincere romances these days. Now it's time for movie studios to trust audiences will want more than the most obvious, blatant and far-fetched developments in their love stories, and give us a tale that really means something off the page and screen.

Bonus: Adrienne recalls being younger and using a Barbie doll's head as a ball and Barbie's body as the bat. This is a great idea if Major League Baseball ever wants to make the game new and different. And tiny.

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