MOVIE REVIEW

Cold Mountain  (2003)

Starring: Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Reneé Zellweger
Director: Anthony Minghella

Rating: R

Studio: Miramax

Release Date: 12.25.03

Review Posted: 12.25.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara M. Fetters

Fiery "Cold Mountain" Fascinating Despite Flaws

Inman (Jude Law) has been fighting on the side of South for what seems like forever. He is tired, battered and bruised beyond almost any human recognition. His beard has grown long and scraggily, and many of his best friends from the tiny township of Cold Mountain have long been buried deep within the earth. And now, with the war’s outcome on the side of the North quickly becoming no more than a blood-soaked afterthought, Inman cannot help but think of home.

It is home that he left Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman). The daughter of the new town preacher Reverend Monroe (Donald Sutherland), Inman hasn’t shared much more than a kiss with the beautiful Southern belle, yet they both know the either is their one and only love. But all is not well on the Monroe farm. The Reverend has died and, with all the able bodied men off fighting in the war, there is no one left to help the fragile lass work the land. It as at this lowest point, poverty reaching into every nook and cranny of her home, that Ada writes to Inman to please come home.

Recuperating in a Confederate infirmary, the bedraggled soldier receives the strawberry blonde’s letter and its passionate despair burns him to the core. He immediately sets off cross-country, deserting the army and a war he never really believed in, to be reunited with the woman he loves. Years may have passed, but he knows in his soul she still feels for him as he does for her, and Inman knows nothing the land between him and Ada has to throw at him will stop him from his quest.

In the most obvious aspects, Charles Frazier’s acclaimed Civil War novel Cold Mountain is a 19th century version of Virgil’s The Odyssey. Like the journey faced by Odysseus in the classic Greek tale, Inman is a man weary of war and ready to make the long journey home to see once – maybe for the last time – more the people he loves. Along the way he faces hardship, tragedy and a cast of unusual characters whom all put obstacles in his path, the wearied soldier forces himself past them all in order to get home.

Unlike Virgil, however, Frazier spends just as much time on the home front as he does on the battlefield. Of the journeys taken here, Inman’s may be the longest in miles but Ada travels every bit as far emotionally. In fact, this woman of leisure must quickly learn how to survive in a world where etiquette and ruby lips do little to keep the garden tilled and meat on the table. With the help of the wild and headstrong Ruby Thewes (Reneé Zellweger), Ada becomes her own woman, able to swing an axe and carry a rifle with the best of them, doing her best to make sure Inman has a home to come back to.

In fact, this is only a little bit of what is going on in “The English Patient” director Anthony Minghella’s adaptation of Frazier’s novel. In fact, there is too much going on, and the Oscar-winning director has trouble bringing it all together in a cohesive whole. That said, there is power to found in “Cold Mountain,” most of it emanating from Law’s controlled and internally dynamic performance. He’s a stoically tragic and fascinating figure, his journey across the battle-scared Southern landscape undeniably mesmerizing.

But then, Ada’s story is equally as compelling in many ways, especially when Ruby shows up about an hour into the film. Watching this woman, kept physically ignorant by a high-class society that deemed girls should be kept beautiful and poised but nothing else, find her inner strength and take control of her life and farm is easy to become absorbed in. The only thing from keeping these moments from true greatness is the miscasting of Kidman. The glorious actress fits the bill physically, yet it seems to take her almost half the film to get a hold of the character. She wavers – and I’m not just talking about her accent – in the role, not appearing to get a lock on it until Zellweger arrives to help her find her way.

Suddenly, Kidman seems to get a grip on Ada and the actress comes alive. Maybe it that has to do with the fact it is in the second half that the gentile Miss Monroe has to find her inner strength, or maybe it just has to do with the fact she gets to share the screen with the incandescently feral Zellweger. Either way, Kidman suddenly shines and “Cold Mountain” wakes up with her.

If nothing else, there are few more visually sumptuous movies to be found this year. Minghella’s knack for framing and imagery is on full display in this film, the desolate war-torn landscape of the South impossible to take your eyes off of. Academy Award-winning cinematographer John Seale (“The English Patient”) outdoes himself with this film, deftly moving from interior the exterior scenes with a graceful ease that’s utterly amazing.

More, “Cold Mountain” opens with a literal bang the size of which hasn’t been seen on film in ages. One of the most famous battles of the Civil War, simply known as the Battle of the Crater in Petersburg, Virginia, is, simply put, awe-inspiring. In a sneak attack, the Northern soldiers burrowed deep underneath the Southern lines placing massive amounts of explosives. The resulting detonation left hundreds of Confederate fighters dead or dying, but also created a crater the size of a meteor hit in which the North found themselves tragically stuck in. An inhuman bloodbath ensued, both sides taking an inordinate amount of casualties that left the ground covered in rivers or blood.

If only the love story the film is strung together on carried more weight. I found myself carrying next to none if Inman ever made it back to Ada, their undeveloped passion for each other leaving me scratching my head why such a weighty movie rests upon it. Rapturous looks of passionate longing aside, I just didn’t see what these two were finding so compelling about one another. If anything, I found more passion to be found in Inman’s cradling of lonely Confederate widow Natalie Portman (“Attack of the Clones”) than in a graphically (and undeniably sexy) love scene between the soldier and his preacher’s daughter love.

I also had trouble with the short shrift given to the nasty members of the Home Guard, a group of men left out of the war who took charge like Western land barons while the Southern men were off fighting and dying on the battlefields. Historically, these groups were not very nice men, pillaging and having their way with many of the locals they were sworn to protect. While Minghella doesn’t shirk from their nascent nastiness, the soldiers of the Home Guard as depicted here are so vile and evil I was surprised they weren’t sporting Snidley Whiplash mustaches. Maybe the scenes making these men three-dimensional were left on the cutting room floor in order to keep the movie’s running time shy of three-hours, but if that is the case then they were cuts Minghella should have shied away from making.

Yet, this still a strong and passionate film made by filmmaker with real imagination. “Cold Mountain” is never less than enthralling, and even with all its problems it is still a film to cherish. In a world where studios make so many pictures based on the idiotic ramblings of focus groups, here is a movie that has the courage to ask interesting and complex questions and then the gumption to let the audience come up with the answers on their own. Flaws and all, “Cold Mountain” burns the screen with a calenture few films dare.

Rating: êêê  (out of 4)

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