LONG After The Viewer Stops Caring, Nights In Rodanthe Becomes Interesting.

The Good: Moments of acting (mostly at the end), Message, Cinematography
The Bad: Terribly obvious plot, Characters that make no sense, Bland acting, Overbearing soundtrack
The Basics: One of the most obvious romantic dramas in years, Nights In Rodanthe is plagued by cliches and awful dialogue that encourages melodrama.


Tonight I am in envy of Roger Ebert. There is a man who has seen more movies than I have and he still seems to love the medium. I mean, there are still movies I love, but as far as the history of films goes, there are so many conceits that have already been done ad nauseam. But there are great movies, like Casablanca (reviewed here!), that when they begin anything can happen. Seriously, with the opening of Casablanca, there are about a million ways the film could go.

Then there are movies like Nights In Rodanthe, which very quickly becomes a movie that will end one of two ways. By the end of the opening credits to Nights In Rodanthe, the viewer can narrow the movie down to: Adrienne (played by Diane Lane) either will go back to her husband or she won't. She will be with Paul or she won't. Technically, I suppose that's three options. But by the end of the opening credits, the movie is down to those options and how we get there becomes so tedious that now that I have returned from a screening I am absolutely baffled that the film was only ninety-seven minutes long. Seriously, the most fun I had tonight at the movies was in tormenting the two 10th grade girls who sat beside me by asking them to come up with the name of an author (it took them ten minutes - no kidding! - and they came up with Shakespeare and they had to ask someone nearby what his first name was, a terrible statement on the education system in the U.S. made even worse by the fact that they are currently reading "that play with the witches" [that being The Tragedy Of MacBeth]). My point here is that my dismay in the utterly laughable ignorance of the girls next to me was the high point.

Nights In Rodanthe is based upon a novel by Nicholas Sparks, whose cinematic adaptations include The Notebook (reviewed here!) and The Lucky One (reviewed here!). As my usual caveat, this is a review of the film presented, not of the book. That said . . .

Adrienne is a married woman who wakes up alone to send her children off to Orlando with her estranged husband, Jack. Jack ambushes Adrienne by letting her know that he wants to come home. Seven months after leaving, he is ready to work things out and he pressures her to come with him and the children on vacation to reconnect with him. Adrienne, however, promised her friend Jean that she would look after her inn, the Rodanthe, and she leaves to tend the inn and its lone patron, the dour Dr. Paul Flanner.

Flanner, it turns out, is in town because one of the locals is suing him because his wife died on Flanner's operating table. As a hurricane approaches, Adrienne and Paul find themselves growing together mostly because of proximity and yelling at one another until they fall in love and the inevitable resolution comes.

Nights In Rodanthe is absolutely agonizing to watch and frankly by the time it became engaging enough to be interesting, I had long since stopped caring. The film defied my early expectations only in that the first scene I anticipated would end with a kiss did not. Instead, the first kiss between Paul and Adrienne is delayed a scene. But other things, such as Adrienne's daughter Amanda slamming the door after storming off upstairs came exactly on cue, as did the ultimate resolution at the Rodanthe.

As I left the theater, one of the other viewers commented eagerly to another that "Wow, he sure can write them!" I beg to differ. I assume she was talking about Nicholas Sparks or in this case Ann Peacock and John Romano, who adapted the novel for a screenplay, but perhaps my standards are far too high. I did seem to be one of the few people who looked disappointed walking out of the theater, but the college aged woman on my left looked bored through most of it, so I didn't feel alone during the film. Ahhh, but the writing. The dialogue in this film is so terrible in its level of melodrama that one wonders if Nicholas Sparks is simply a pseudonym for a fourth grade girl. Seriously, much of the dialogue between Adrienne and Paul is expressed in angry, over-the-top cliches that are the staple of young writer dialogue.

Perhaps the reason Nights In Rodanthe suffers so much under my pen is because it was simply packed with all of the most predictable and boring conceits. There is overbearing music throughout the film to accent the important emotional moments by completely attempting to dictate what the viewer feels. This is especially noticeable in the opening shots of the inn where the music swells for dramatic appreciation. At her first opportunity, Adrienne goes through Paul's personal affects in his room. Why? Because that's what people do when they are alone, we are meant to believe.

We are meant to believe that much the same way we are expected to buy yet another romance where the prime motivation is simply two adults who are alone together. Paul and Adrienne have absolutely no sexual chemistry upon meeting, but it's that type of movie so within fifteen minutes they have begun shedding their pain, condescendingly judging one another and bonding. Perhaps even worse is how Jean and Adrienne speak when talking with one another. Their dialogue is dumb and girly, a parody of high school chicks that is entirely unrealistic for women of their ages and places in life. Again, it is all cliches.

And as bad as that assumption that just because two people are alone they will bond is the age old conceit that alcohol will solve virtually everything. I'm so tired of these boring conceits! Woman and man together in a house, they'll end up together. There will be a scene where they drown their sorrows with alcohol and usually, this will lead to some form of physical contact. It's that type of movie. The only remotely interesting aspect of this in Nights In Rodanthe is that (presumably to get the PG-13 rating) the actual drinking is edited out. Adrienne picks up a shot, prepares to drink it, the film cuts to Paul and when we see her next, she is removing the emptied shot glass from her lips . . . Hard not to love that wacky MPAA.

Finally, in the storm that inevitably comes, the emotions that Paul and Adrienne go through are so forced. Just as most of the dialogue is offensively simple, the range of emotions and the predictability that Paul will end up holding Adrienne is just gagworthy. The reason this is so bad is because the movie defies the characters within. Adrienne states that she admires her daughter, Amanda, because of how she speaks her mind, yet within a day, Adrienne is yelling at Paul and expressing herself in criticizing him on how he lives his life. Similarly, Paul is detached, estranged from his son and annoyingly does not close the door behind him when he first enters the inn (who does that?!), yet suddenly becomes the fountain of wisdom for how Adrienne can fix her life.

The problems extend from the characters who make little or no sense through to the acting. Richard Gere plays affectless remarkably well in Paul's establishing scenes but he smirks through his deep expository scenes. There's something unsettling about watching Richard Gere churn out lamentful dialogue with a subtle smirk in his eyes and a smile on his face. People don't - usually - smile when they lament things!

On the other hand, it was wonderful to see James Franco, who pops up as Paul's son. Equally good is Mae Whitman as Amanda. I had seen Whitman before in Arrested Development (reviewed here!) as the bland Ann Veal. Whitman is impressive as Amanda in that she is so annoying as the teenage daughter that she is utterly convincing for a girl of the age she portrays. As well, long, long after I stopped caring, Whitman delivers a performance in the final fifteen minutes that illustrates some real depth of understanding of the human condition and the mindset of her character. She's amazing; it's too bad so much of her role is so annoying. Other decent acting comes from Christopher Meloni in his brief role.

But much of the film hinges on the performance of Diane Lane as Adrienne. I had only seen Lane before in Under The Tuscan Sun (reviewed here!) and there was little in the first three-quarters of Nights In Rodanthe that illustrated any talent I had not already seen from her in that. For most of the movie, she simply seems well-cast or like she is acting like one might think Annette Bening would in the same role. But then, in the last fifteen minutes, she pulls out the stops and gives a very deep and real performance.

But by then, who cares?

There are serious problems with Nights In Rodanthe, not the least of which is a candle lit in a room no one has been in before Paul and Adrienne go up to it, but mostly the movie suffers because the characters are boring, poorly presented, and walking through the motions of a terribly predictable plot with dialogue that is largely cliches. There is a decent movie in the story here, but it comes in the last fifteen minutes or is given simply as a story. One whole movie could have been done based on the way the film resolves itself and been a beautiful character study. The other movie that would have been great to see would have been one based upon the story X tells Paul about his wife. That is an actual love story by the sound of it. But it is something the viewer is simply told.

Outside the magnificent acting in the very final act, the movie has decent cinematography. It's still not enough to recommend seeing this movie. There are far better romance stories on film. This one . . . will disappoint those who love movies, at the very least.

For other films featuring Christopher Meloni, please check out my reviews of:
True Blood - Season 5
Bound
NYPD Blue - Season 4
12 Monkeys

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Another Average Great Film: Amelia Underwhelms.

The Good: Great cinematography, Interesting characters, Good plot
The Bad: Acting is very average, Pacing issues
The Basics: A good, but not great film, Amelia is an informative biography of the romance between Amelia Earhart and George Putnam that is predictably great and unchallenging.


There are several films I have encountered as a reviewer where they fall into what I call "Mediocre Greatness." They are usually films that have high drama and focus on character and have an amazing ensemble cast. Those same films seldom stretch the talents of those involved and they merely live up to the expected greatness of the performers. Mystic River is the first of many of these type movies that comes to my mind. Today, I add Amelia to that list. It is not a bad movie: it has all the necessary factors to be popular and Oscar fodder from recognizable actors acting well to a good story to a sweeping soundtrack with great visuals. But I got pretty much all that from the trailers. Watching the movie left me with very little that was new or powerful and having seen so many movies, this conformed more to expectations than it defied or exceeded them.

Amelia is a biopic, a biography of Amelia Earhart and I went to a screening with my mother, who is a big fan of Earhart and was quite excited about the movie. I'm actually surprised she wanted to go because she was at least as excited about Julie And Julia which I took her to earlier that year and she was quite underwhelmed. In this case, she came out loving it, telling me that this was a movie she would love on DVD when it arrives there (which she has since gotten) and my immediate question was "Have you seen Hilary Swank in anything before?" Her answer was "no" and I suspect the reason she was so pleasantly surprised by the movie was that Swank truly is amazing in the role of Amelia Earhart.

As a young woman, Amelia Earhart experiences the thrill of flying while at the Canadian National Expo and she devotes her life thereafter to learning to fly. Flying small planes comes surprisingly naturally to Amelia and after Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic, the search is on for the first woman to make the same trek. Encouraged by the operation's publicist, George Putnam, Amelia takes on the challenge and becomes the first woman to make the flight, even though she is not alone in the plane when it happens. This, however, makes her an international celebrity and she and Putnam quickly get closer. After Putnam leaves his wife and tries doggedly to get her, Amelia Earhart becomes his wife.

Shortly thereafter, Earhart makes her first solo transatlantic flight and her celebrity increases. Putnam, though, tries to be supportive of both her and her image goals and helps her to look for the next big thing. As she starts to break records for the types of flights she takes - and attracts the attentions of other men, most notably Gene Vidal - she sets her sights on the one thing no one else has ever accomplished; a flight around the world from an equatorial route. Despite the dangers, she and her co-pilot Fred Noonan set out to make the flight . . .

I thought I knew pretty much the whole story of Amelia before seeing the film. After all, I argued, it was pretty hard to get excited about a movie where we knew the end so very well before the movie opened. But the truth is, Amelia is an engaging character study that spends most of its time focused on the relationship between Earhart and Putnam and as such, it is more a love story between a woman in the air and a man on the ground. In fact, some of the best moments of the movie have Putnam and Earhart simply talking to one another over radios without being in the same room and they manage to keep the viewer engaged even then.

The movie works because the audience wants to root for Earhart and this becomes the transformation of a humble woman with a dream into a celebrity. Earhart's story is a good one for those looking for a tale of empowerment (female or otherwise) and the relationship she and Putnam have is at times complicated, but is largely easy -to-watch and enjoy. Moreover, director Mira Nair fleshes out the love story with a wonderful visual sense. Nair has a nice sense of cinematography that breaks up the intimate scenes between Earhart and Putnam and Earhart and Vidal and makes the story seem larger than it is.

As well, in recent months, I have found the soundtrack on many movies to be intrusive. Nair keeps the soundtrack both epic in its scope and unobtrusive in its presentation. While the music supports the mood and helps to raise tension and develop the story, it never overwhelms the viewer with being too in-your-face. But here opens the perfect entry into the topic of "mediocre greatness." Just because the standard is awful and so many directors abuse the viewers with overbearing soundtracks, it should not be celebrated when a director actually operates within the boundaries of good taste. So, while it is good that Amelia is not plagued with a melodramatic soundtrack, that should be pretty standard, not the abnormal condition and that Amelia lives up to a moderately low standard only illustrates how far most modern cinema has fallen.

Which brings us to the acting. Outside Nightwatch (reviewed here!) how bad does one truly expect a film with Ewan McGregor to be? I ask that tongue-in-cheek, but there is truth to the idea that Nair has stacked the deck with McGregor, Richard Gere and Hilary Swank. Much can be written about the on-screen chemistry between Swank and Gere, but while they have a spark and it's wonderful in the movie, it is nothing exceptional on either actor's part. Gere is KNOWN for being charming and he plays a very typical role of charming Richard Gere as George Putnam. This falls easily within the range of expected abilities for an actor of Gere's caliber and we truly see nothing new from him that we have not seen before.

As for Hilary Swank, she helps bring in Oscar Pandering Season early, but not unjustly. She has a habit of playing strong female characters who stand up for an idea and ride that to their eventual end and Amelia is no exception. As Amelia Earhart, she is forthright, strong and occasionally funny. I did not know much about Earhart before seeing the movie, but my mother says Swank's performance matched a lot of the historical footage she watches obsessively. That being the case, Swank gives a good performance that is well within her previously displayed emotional range. She is a fine actress and she has a knack for picking roles that play within her known range and this is no exception by any means.

But Amelia is still enjoyable and it offers a decent contrast to the sheer amount of horror schlock on the screens in this pre-Halloween time and it a decent film, even if it comes with no real surprises in the story or in the performances.

For other works with Hilary Swank, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Million Dollar Baby
The Affair Of The Necklace
Buffy The Vampire Slayer

6/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Chicago: All Razzle Dazzle, Little Substance.

The Good: Good music, Moments of direction
The Bad: Film doesn't know what it wants to be, Character issues
The Basics: In a disappointing musical drama, murderess Roxie Hart hires a smarmy lawyer to get out of a death sentence.


There is something delightful sometimes in taking a minority position on a popular work. I do try to go into every experience open-minded, but sitting with my wife and watching Chicago, I was almost instantly turned off to the film. While I have no particular prejudice against musicals, I found myself underwhelmed by Chicago and am astonished that voters in 2003 thought this was the best film of the year. One suspects that the sheer star power associated with the movie pushed it over in many viewers' minds.

But the truth is, Chicago is a sloppy film and much of the blame for that may be placed squarely with director Rob Marshall. Marshall does not seem to know if he is simple recreating the stage play Chicago for the big screen - limiting his sets to stages for musical numbers, presenting things like blood during the dance numbers with kerchiefs, etc. - or if he is making a movie unlimited by a theater's four walls (cutting together shots inside and outside jail cells, mixing settings, etc.). The result is a jumble that is terribly unsuccessful. The best example of the transfer to screen working better would be The Phantom Of The Opera. In that film, when the Phantom takes Christine into the sewers, the movie goes from the theater to a sewer set and the lair is clearly different. By contrast, when this occurs in the stage production of The Phantom Of The Opera, the players are limited to dimming the lights and using dry ice to create the illusion of the sewers. In Chicago, outside a few shots that mix the cinematic potential of the stage play with stage-type imagery, much of the film is presented as if it were the stage play being caught on camera. And the camera work and editing are often frenetic, making the movie seem strangely desperate to sell how flashy it is without backing it up with real substance.

In Chicago, Velma Kelly is arrested after her stage show for the double murder of her husband and sister as the envious Roxie Hart looks on. Roxie returns to her apartment with her lover, who tells her he is leaving and generally berates her before she shoots him. Her husband, the dimwitted Amos, takes the fall until he realizes that the body on the floor is not that of a stranger, but of a salesman he and his wife knew. Roxie is incarcerated with Velma and Roxie soon learns the ways of the cellblock under Matron Mama Morton.

Mama has an idea on how to save Roxie's life, which is to hire defense attorney Billy Flynn. Amos and Roxie come up with every cent they can and Billy takes their case - despite them falling below his requisite $5,000 retainer. Soon, Billy is trying the case in the media and Velma is jealous because Roxie is now stealing the attention she needs to win her case. As the murderesses try to win the public's heart, Billy gets a trial date for Roxie and she dreams of being exonerated in order to pursue her dream of singing and dancing on stage.

Chicago might work as a stage musical and it could have worked as a film - even a musical - but the blending of the two mediums falls flat. So, for example, when the women on death row are singing about their crimes, they do a dance number within a framed jail set which seems very much like a set decoration. At various points, though, the performer flashes to a time and place outside that set to tell part of their story, only to come back within the theatrical sets. Sometimes, this is for just a single shot and the overall look is sloppy with the mixing of the two mediums. As well, there are some obvious and terrible bluescreen shots of the streets of Chicago which are appallingly bad.

As for the merits, the plot includes tangents involving Mama singing about how corrupt she is, another inmate exhausting her appeals and being sentenced, and the next flash in the pan arriving at the jail. The post-Roxie killer, played by Lucy Liu, has a single distracting song before Roxie thinks on her feet and gets the spotlight back. Part of what makes this so irksome is that Roxie and Velma are unlikable characters, with Billy being the archetypal smarmy lawyer who is also hard to root for. So, just because Roxie thinks on her feet does not make her a more likable character. She is still dim, conniving and a liar.

Amid plot-relevant songs, like one where Roxie allows Billy to throw a press conference where she is essentially his puppet as he plays the media to take Roxie's side, there are other numbers that might be impressive on stage, but fall flatter in the film context. Catherine Zeta-Jones presents a song and dance number as Velma wherein she shows Roxie what her routine with her sister on stage was. Zeta-Jones sings, dances and the camerawork is willed with grand moves and cuts which accent every thrust, bright-eyed smile and foot tap. The editing here is so choppy, though, Zeta-Jones could have simply been making individual moves, getting them on camera and having them cut together. In other words, the continuity of movement is broken up so badly that the scene looks awful. The impressive aspect to this scene would have been if it could have been done in one take, which is what theater performers are forced to do. In this context, the scene is assembled and is underwhelming for anyone who enjoys dance or theater.

On top of the unlikable characters who are out to save their own skin or make a lot of money off the suffering of others, no matter how unscrupulously they do it, the acting is not terribly impressive. Catherine Zeta-Jones's on-screen charisma seems to be based entirely on her bugging her eyes out during quick cuts in the dance numbers and Renee Zellweger plays Roxie Hart with the same annoying whiny quality as her character from Cold Mountain. And while Richard Gere and John C. Reilly hold their own with the singing and dancing, Queen Latifah's performance is utterly unsurprising given her start as a singer!

On the acting front is where Chicago is most overrated. Reilly's acting has him performing as yet-another working-class dimwit, which we've seen plenty of times before from him. In fact, we've seen that from Reilly about as frequently as we've seen Richard Gere play a charismatic man with sparkling eyes and a sexy smile. These are good casting decisions. But Zellweger, Zeta-Jones, Gere, Latifah and Reilly all flop here as actors as the viewer is entirely uninvested in any one of their characters. They shine as singers and dancers, which might surprise some viewers, but singing and dancing ability is not the same as acting.

The result is a period film that is a mediocre presentation of a stage musical, trying only half-heartedly to be something more than what it is.

For other musical films, please check out my reviews of:
The Little Mermaid
The Broadway Melody
The Nightmare Before Christmas

[As the winner of the 2003 Best Picture Oscar, this film is included in "W.L.'s Best Picture Project" which is available by clicking here!]

4/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my ever-growing index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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