NIGHTS IN RODANTHE (2008)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: George C. Wolfe

SCREENWRITER: Ann Peacock, John Romano

FILM STARS: Diane Lane, Richard Gere, James Franco, Scott Glenn, Christopher Meloni, Carolyn McCormick, Viola Davis, Pablo Schreiber, Mae Whitman, Charlie Tahan

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Nicholas Sparks

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Grand Central Publications

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2008

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 2002

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Romance

WORDS: Look, I know many of you out there would like to see an older novel and an older film featured rather than the “recent” stuff like this. But I like doing these recent films because I don’t have to think or write too much, ’cause I don’t hold in high regard many modern films and think even less of contemporary literature.

With that in mind, I turn to the film Nights in Rodanthe (2008) based on the book Nights in Rodanthe (2002).

The book and the film are romantic dramas with tear jerking elements. This is the type of stuff that was written by women (and well written on many occasions) throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s. But, you see increasingly, men writing in this genre, and, I assume that come from the fact they want to be published and they aren’t going to be published nowadays if they write like Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Charles Bukowski, or James Jones.

Tastes perhaps have changed, rates of readership by gender may have changed, or maybe the industry itself has ideologically changed. I don’t know but readership is down and the vast majority of readers of contemporary literature nowadays are female.

Fiction readers in the 50s across the west were normally female but the gap between male and female was a closer than it is today. AI suggests that in the 1950s up to 80% of fiction readers were female in the USA. I’m not sure if that is accurate but if it is then it was females that were making bestselling authors out of Hemingway, Mailer, James Jones, Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck, Alistair MacLean etc. I suspect the gap was a little closer and when AI was pushed by me it let me know that almost half the readers where male, then. That seems about right. What does not seem to be in issue is that reading has declined amongst adults since the Second World War and contemporary fiction readers are 80% female today. That’s the audience you need to target if you want to be a successful writer.

Gone are the days when the big publishing house would print all sorts of novels. Sure there are small publishing houses and self publishing and kindle, but they won’t sustain you.

I was talking with a friend about this over coffee last week and it seems perhaps there is an ideological agenda to what will be published but the bottom line is publishers want to make money so they have to have an eye, or ear, on what the public wants. Of course, given that book sales are generally down one could be right in believing that commercial success is not paramount in their thinking.

You don’t have to be female to write romantic fiction but the approach between men and women is different, it seems. I hasten to say, not “all” men and not “all” women, just generally.

The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Farewell to Arms (1929) by Ernest Hemingway (not to mention The Sun Also Rises (1926)), By Love Possessed (1957) by James Gould Cozzens, A Summer Place (1958) by Sloan Wilson were all best sellers and ostensibly “romance” novels and all written by men.

So, what is the difference? I’m no expert because I just have not read enough romance novels written by females but it seems to me that romance novels written by men often focus on action, external plot, social structures and environments, and physical descriptions of characters, whereas novels by women tend to prioritize emotional processes, relationship dynamics, and deep character development.

Nicholas Sparks is a best selling author. Nicholas Sparks writes romantic dramas. Nicholas Sparks has managed to do this in an era where women make up 80% of the contemporary fiction readers. He know what side his bread buttered on.

But, more importantly … he writes books that are written as films.

Of the 25 novels h has written since 1996, 12 have been made into films, all successful, some ultra successful – Message in a Bottle (1999), The Notebook (2004), Dear John (2010). They make easily adaptable and user friendly films. Their are no history lessons or big picture issues but, at least his novels usually involve adults, not teenagers, and don’t involve vampire love, or fantasy elements.

In Nights in Rodanthe (Rodanthe is a coastal town in North Carolina favoured by beach-lovers and romantics), an unhappy recently divorced (or about to be divorced in the film) woman, meets a divorced man, a surgeon (of course), who carries his own share of difficulties, at a hotel. Troubled by their pasts, they both quickly find comfort in each other. The protagonists are middle-aged (45 and 54) and the novel focuses on love, loss, and the challenges of parenthood and divorce.

It’s a tear jerker.

The book is not for me.

But, I did watch the film.

It’s a tear jerker

Why did I watch the film? …. I have followed Richard Gere since seeing Days of Heaven (1979) and Diane Lane since watching The Outsiders (1983) as a kid. Though they have both made my watching of their films an uneven and rocky ride they were for me here, the whole show (though the supporting cast (including Scott Glenn, James Franco, Christopher Meloni, Viola Davis) is solid.

The film doesn’t deviate much from the book. Even the ages of Lane and Gere, 43 and 59 (or thereabouts) are close to the book. That’s a novelty in Hollywood. Screenwriters Ann Peacock and John Romano and director George C. Wolfe only have to apply paint to the numbers put down by author Sparks and that’s what they do. The major difference between book and film is the book features a timeline with flashbacks, whereas the film plays out more fluidly and linearly. There are some character adjustments including oddly: in the novel Adrienne is already divorced from her husband, Jack. In the film, she is only estranged from him, and he is actively trying to reconcile with her, making her relationship with Paul a technical affair. Only in the contemporary era Hollywood can you have a unfaithful character as a sympathetic protagonist. Well, only if the character is a female, in an unhappy marriage, who has found her soul mate outside of marriage.

The movie becomes more of a traditional “chick flick” romantic drama, focusing heavily on the beauty of the setting and the romantic chemistry between the stars, which simplifies (the already perhaps simple) inner conflicts explored in the book. The film was watchable (just), even if was faintly ridiculous with enough obvious and noble characters to raise a regular chuckled groan.

The book received mixed reviews but was a best seller. The film received negative reviews but was a box office success (Budget $30 million, Box office $84.4 million). The people know what they want.

I think I have written too much. Groan.

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