Adrienne Willis is in the process of getting a divorce from her husband Jack after he left her for another woman. Their separation has caused a rift between Adrienne and her rebellious teenage daughter Amanda. One morning when picking up Amanda and his son Danny for a weekend visit, Jack tells Adrienne he still loves her and wants to move back home. Adrienne tells him and she needs time and space to think. Adrienne drives to Rodanthe, North Carolina to look after a friend's bed-and-breakfast for the weekend; a rustic, romantichouse righton the beach, and partially in the surf at high tide. The only guest for the weekend is surgeon Paul Flanner, who arrives at the inn with his own emotional baggage. He suffers from flashbacks of a surgery that ended tragically, which has turned him cold and frustrated. The family of the patient who died, who live in Rodanthe, is suing him. A storm arrives in Rodanthe, and Paul and Adrienne team up to protect the inn. They dine together, share stories, and eventually turn to each other for emotional comfort. A genuine romance is born and they fall in love. With Adrienne's advice and moral support, Paul finds the courage to visit the deceased patient's widower. Paul also carries guilt for passing up a relationship with his son Mark in favour of his career and eventually decides to go down to South America, where he is working as a physician, to see him. During their separation, Adrienne and Paul exchange numerous handwritten letters expressing their longing to be with each other again. On the evening that Adrienne and Paul are to reunite, he does not show up. Adrienne is unable to determine from the airlines if he was on his flight back from South America. One afternoon, Mark arrives at Adrienne's door with a box of Paul's personal belongings. Paul has been killed in a flash mudslide. Mark thanks Adrienne for "giving him back the father he knew when he was a child". Over the weeks that follow, Adrienne struggles with the unbearable grief of losing Paul. Eventually, Amanda is able to coax the story from her mother. This is a turning point for their relationship, and Adrienne begins to deal with her loss. She tells her daughter the story of a very special type of love, the kind she found with Paul, and encourages her daughter to seek that for herself someday. Adrienne returns to Rodanthe and is finally granted a respite from her heart-rending sadness when, during a solitary sojourn along the beach, she looks up to see a small herd of magnificent wild horses thundering by her. She, her children and her best friend walk down to the dock where Adrienne and Paul had once danced, and Adrienne is finally able to say goodbye to him.
The house was damaged in a hurricane after the movie was filmed. New owners bought the house and relocated it to another part of the Outer Banks. Tourists to the area can rent portions of the house and stay in specific rooms that have been remodeled to appear as they did in the film. The name of the house is Serendipity.
Reception
Box office
Nights in Rodanthe has grossed $41,850,659 in North America and $42,524,402 in other territories for a worldwide total of $84,375,061. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $13,418,454, finishing second at the box office behind Eagle Eye. It became Warner Bros.' thirteenth highest-grossing release of 2008.
Critical reception
According to review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the critical consensus holds that the film is "derivative and schmaltzy" and "strongly mottled by contrivances that even the charisma of stars Diane Lane and Richard Gere can't repair". The site rates the movie as "rotten", with a score of 30% based on 132 reviews. Metacritic scored the film with a 39/100, or "generally negative", based on 26 critics' reviews. Although the movie was panned, it grossed $84,375,061 worldwide. The Times included Nights in Rodanthe on its 100 Worst Films of 2008 list. In 2010, Time magazine named it one of the 10 worst chick flicks ever made.
Accolades
Home media
Nights in Rodanthe was released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 10, 2009.
