Directed by: George C. Wolfe

Starring: Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Viola Davis, Scott Glenn, Mae Whitman

MPAA rating: PG-13 (for slight sensuality)

Running time: 98 minutes

Best suited for: Kleenex packers

Least suited for: theromancewith-a-laugh-track crowd

In Hollywood, ordinary doesn't play very well. Why make a film about a peasized meteorite plunking into the wilderness when you can concoct a meteor, the size of Everest, hitting L.A. or Manhattan? Why make a film about the dreary life of an archaeologist (think History Channel) when you can conjure up Indiana Jones? Bigger and badder usually means better.

Romance? Not so easy an adjustment. Because there's no easy definition of an ordinary romance. From "Harold and Maude" to "Antony and Cleopatra," audiences still love a tale that's more fantasy than reality.

Once in awhile along comes a romance that tries it both ways, the ordinary laced with a bit of the extraordinary. Sure, it's been done before—a glimpse of common folk caught in that wild exuberance (or uncertain mystique) of love.

I'm talking about efforts that don't incorporate a safety net of comedic undercurrent, as, for instance, "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" do—those gently uplifting flicks that forbid you to imagine an ending without a smile or two.

Which is to say that films like George C. Wolfe's "Nights in Rodanthe" (based on Nicholas Sparks' novel) strike me as somewhat daring and honest in their approach—a story of damaged but otherwise typical people who meet in a plausible fashion to share an experience . . . that may or may not result in an everlasting romance.

Plausible perhaps, but not without a high quotient of melodrama. In fact, bring Kleenex. Bring lots and lots of Kleenex. Author Nicholas Sparks' last cinematic interpretation, "The Notebook," required a spare hanky or two, and "Nights in Rodanthe" is no different.

"The Notebook" relied far too much on its plot "gimmick," yet managed to retain a noble quality that wiggled down into one's psyche. Even if you figured out that film's prevalent and spoonfed secret, "The Notebook" proved a heartfelt and tender effort. While "Nights in Rodanthe" offers a far more straightforward approach, it does twist and turn the audience toward a definitive conclusion, although many won't know what that is until just about the right moment.

I'm reluctant to say more about "Nights in Rodanthe" than simply Richard Gere and Diane Lane meet on a secluded, windswept North Carolina beach (because this is one of those less-is-more films). And yet I suppose I must dangle some sort of carrot.

So Gere plays a doctor with more ego than empathy (although underneath it all he's, y'know, an okay guy).

Lane has a wayward husband who wants to be forgiven (although underneath it all he's, y'know, that kind of wayward husband), and a teenaged daughter who is a . . . well, a normal teenaged daughter.

Both Gere and Lane are barely coping, on the brink, and they meet at a magical, mystical time in life when going backwards seems akin to toppling into a dark pit of despair and going forward is stepping into a chasm of uncertain loneliness.

Rarely, but sometimes (and usually in movies), one meets a special someone else who's willing to step off with you. And when that someone happens to look like Richard Gere or Diane Lane—well, hey, let's go take that plunge together.

Okay, even with Gere and Lane, even as a romance, "Nights in Rodanthe" isn't perfect.

Both parties are troubled individuals and sometimes the film seems to squelch one barely bared anguish to dwell on another.

Kind of like a Ping-Pong game of angst. There seems insufficient time to quell both inner tortured souls and spin a nifty romance, so the film takes the latter road.

I'll admit to one particularly neat interaction between Lane and her quasi-goth daughter (Mae Whitman), a hopeful consolation to all mother/teen daughter relationships (which my wife fondly calls "the decade of darkness"). Sometimes support comes from the unlikeliest of places.

And even when "Nights" doesn't manage to get it right, it tries, and that accounts for something.

Call it a "second chance" movie or merely a film about the hope for oneself that appears like a mirage over the horizon.

For those hopeless romantics awaiting their fix, this one should fill the reservoir for some time to come.