Nights in Rodanthe

The novels of the bestselling author Nicolas Sparks have already made three successful big-screen adaptations, and anyone who has seen Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember or The Notebook will know that he specialises in sentimental romances. This is also the third pairing of Diane Lane and ­Richard Gere. While they ­mesmerised in The Cotton Club and Lane won an Oscar for ­Unfaithful, here they seem happy just to churn out ­romantic clichés about love and happiness. Unlike those ­movies, this is adaptation by numbers and thus lacks warmth. It is presided over by one of the great theatre directors of our time, George C Wolfe, the same man who helmed the award-winning ­Angels In America. Wolfe's ­experience with a motion-picture camera has, thus far, been limited to television. Unfortunately, it shows. As well as a creaky plot and plodding romance, Nights in Rodanthe has some strange edits, and the ­unhappily married mother Lane and the ­estranged father Gere are so badly directed that most of the time you just want to laugh at the wooden dialogue and delivery.