Nicole Kidman (Academy Award(R) Winner -- Best Actress, THE HOURS, 2002) stars with Academy Award(R) winner Renée Zellweger (Best Supporting Actress, COLD MOUNTAIN, 2003) and Academy Award® nominee Jude Law (Best Actor, COLD MOUNTAIN). At the dawn of the Civil War, the men of Cold Mountain, North Carolina, rush to join the Confederate army. Ada (Kidman) has vowed to wait for Inman (Law), but as the war drags on and letters go unanswered, she must find the will to survive. At war's end, hearts will be dashed, dreams fulfilled, and the strength of the human spirit tested ... but not broken! Directed by Academy Award® winner Anthony Minghella (Best Director, THE ENGLISH PATIENT, 1996).
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A reflection on our rich pastJan 24, 2010 I like Nichole Kidman and Renee Zellweger so I thought it would be entertaining. The violence was tolerable but when "hollywood" threw in a disgusting orgy scene, that was too much. It left me feeling very disappointed on what could have been a good movie on the tenacity of human nature for survival during the American Civil War. The scenery was good. Jude Law was also miscast for the love of Nichole.
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Worst Movie I have EVER seenJan 15, 2010 Cold Mountain is, by far, the worst movie I have ever seen. I would give this less than one star if I could.
I had such high hopes for this movie - it won picture of the year, its studded with amazing actors, its a period piece (which are my favorite) and a love story to boot! So I guess going into it I was thinking I was going to see some epic love story, and I was completely wrong.
I found the movie completely disturbing and uncalled for. Now, I love The Patriot, and Saving Private Ryan - the blood and guts of war doesn't bother me in the least. I didn't find the Civil War fighting disturbing at all, when you watch a war movie, you better be prepared to see war. What I found completely disturbing was the band of guys hunting the deserters. Now, I'm a history major and I've studied the guys whose job it was to catch deserters and the only true portrayal of that in this movie was the band who caught Innman and the preacher (who just had them chained up). But the group of guys hunting people down in Cold Mountain, that was laughably ridiculous...or would have been if the scenes weren't so offensive. And let's not get into how many boobs I had to see - wasn't expecting that going into this movie - almost done in an uncalled/completely unnecessary way.
The love story was...oh wait...there wasn't a love story at all. Two people hardly meet, and never talk to each other and have no established relationship and suddenly decide they must be in love. Innman goes to war and pansy Ada begs him to come home, the whole movie is his journey home through the worst of hell just to be with her - again, remember that they don't know each other at all as he's going all through this to be with her - then there isn't even the satisfaction that it was all worth it in the end. The movie ends and sit there feeling like I'm a victim of highway robbery...I just want the two and a half hours of my life back.
Its unfortunate because Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, and Renee Zellweger all gave really great performances...just the movie sucked. I'm not quite sure how anyone gave this movie more than two stars maximum...it really was the worst thing I have ever been subjected to.
The `coldness' of this mountain remains its only flaw...Jan 06, 2010 It's very easy to enjoy `Cold Mountain'. In fact, I think that it would be hard NOT to enjoy it. The film really contains nearly everything needed to make for an entertaining and thrilling and memorable ride. The storyline in engaging (even if some have noted it runs a tad `false'), the acting is enthralling (even if certain performances don't hold up as well over time), the cinematography is spellbinding; everything from the feel to the look to the tone of this film is designed to satisfy your every cinematic want and need.
So, it's safe to say that I thoroughly enjoy this film.
Having read the novel (long after I saw the film), I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the novel was adapted. Yes, there are changes (as will nearly every film adaptation) but with a novel that is so packed (stuffed you may say) with many characters and encounters and situations, it would have been easy for this film to lack fluidity. It would have been easy for this film to feel claustrophobic and detached. I was astonished to see that `Cold Mountain', the film, almost fares better than `Cold Mountain', the novel. Anthony Minghella superbly crafted a film that carries a lot of weight yet never feels overly stuffed or too compact. There is a breathy airiness to this film that helps create a fluid movement from scene to scene. Despite the onslaught of characters and drastically separate situations (the story, in both written and cinematic form, is told in a very episodic manner) the film is very easy to follow.
The story is a seemingly basic one; that of a soldier who goes awol in order to return to his love, a wealthy and sophisticated young woman.
Some have balked at the unrealistic nature of Ada and Inman's love affair. They barely knew one another and seemingly had nothing in common and yet we are expected to believe that they long for one another so drastically that they risk all (at least Inman does) in order to be with each other. I think that this line of reasoning is rather simple. This story is not really a love story in the typical sense. I don't think that either Inman or Ada truly LOVE one another in the sense that they have formed everlasting and genuine emotional connections with each other, but I do believe that each party represents a better life and future for the other. They are both longing to develop that connection, and to be freed from their apparent prisons (both very different yet both very much the same) and so they see in the other a chance to believe in something bigger than they are. They are not risking all for each other, but in stark contrast, they are risking all for themselves.
For me the film has rarely a flaw. The script, while truthfully a hodgepodge of events, contains the atmosphere of pure storytelling and thus remains completely engaging and rewarding. The performances for the most part all still hold up. Jude Law is so moving and so heartbreaking as Inman. He really understands how to convey his character's desperation without stripping him of a soul and making him a walking shell. Small supporting roles from names like Donald Sutherland, Brendan Gleeson and Ray Winstone are all superb, and the string of cameo performances by big names like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Giovanni Ribisi and Jena Malone make their mark quite nicely.
I still feel that Nicole Kidman was sorely miscast and that her empty and emotionless portrayal of Ada dampened the films overall emotional connection. She seems to come to life when Renee Zellweger comes on screen, but it is her `coldness' (near stagnancy at times) that makes her longing for Inman hard to swallow. Renee Zellweger is the focal point of ongoing debate over her zealous (overly so) portrayal of free-spirited Ruby. I admit, she is entertaining, but over the years I too have found her performance near cringe-worthy. It is not very good to be honest, and while it never fails to entertain, I fear that it is entertaining for the wrong reasons.
Which is why I strongly feel that the supporting actress Oscar should have gone to her co-star Natalie Portman. You know how they say that good things come in small packages. In merely 5-10 minutes of screen time, Portman devours the entire film with her intense, believable, heartbreaking, strong and mature portrayal of a lonely and scared woman doing all she can to survive for the sake of her child.
AMAZING.
In the end `Cold Mountain' remains a very good film. It suffers, for me, in the afterthought because it lacks a strong emotional surge. It reminds me a lot of Minghella's other epic `The English Patient'. It is beautifully staged, acted and scripted and yet, when the dust clears, it is strangely forgettable.
It just doesn't `hit' you like you'd expect it to.
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A bag of tiny cubic zirconias...Nov 18, 2009 Cold Mountain / B0001MDP3G
*Spoilers*
I just know this review is going to get buried in "unhelpful" votes, but I truly hated this movie. I can't imagine what anyone could get out of this movie - the depictions of the actual war on display are either non-existent or cartoonishly exaggerated to attempt some kind of heavy-handed good vs. evil narrative. The 'love' story is laughable, the characters are fantastically annoying and irritating, and I'm convinced that Zellweger got her Academy Award on the grounds that her whole character is based around mocking the 'main' characters and highlighting how stupid and useless they are (which is, for what it's worth, a pretty awesome reason to win an award).
Let's deal with the war first - I *think* someone mentioned, briefly, in this three-hour movie that slavery might have something to do with this whole war-thing. It's good that mention is made, because otherwise I might have accidentally believed that the war was orchestrated by fate to keep Inman from Ada. Slavery and its ugly implications are pretty much NEVER mentioned in this 'epic', and the one time African Americans are allowed on the screen, they're immediately shuffled off within 30 seconds. God forbid that black people be allowed screen time when we paid money to see Jude Law and Nicole Kidman - naked, no less.
There *is*, to be fair, a more immediate reason for the war than as a plot device to keep Inman out of Ada's eager arms, and that's so that Ada can constantly hover at the edges of potential abuse at the hands of the local Blatantly Evil Guy (BEG). The BEG wants Ada's property and, by extension, Ada herself, and decides that the most effective way to woo a lonely, vulnerable, naive young woman is to show up at her house once a week and scream at her, rather than try the more risky scheme of shaving his ratty beard and bringing by some flowers and/or beef jerky as presents. You can understand him being confused, though, because he appears to have coasted through life on pure charisma - the only explanation *I* can think of for why, when he and his small group of thugs start terrorizing the entire village and no one so much as peeps in protest. Well, there is *one* more reason I can think of - that in a reality-based, shade-of-gray world where no one is 100% good or evil, the tension between the security patrols and deserters was fraught with all sorts of moral ambiguity and difficult choices - at least a few of the deserters were a legitimate source of concern, what with the poaching, raiding, occasional rapes, and just generally being a drain on an already stretched infrastructure. But why would we consider difficult moral questions like the implications of helping starving soldiers while that food is needed for the starving locals - such things would take up valuable screen time and we've got an epic love story to unfold!
As much as I hate movies where the hero and heroine inexplicably fall inextricably in love with each other in the first five minutes and then spend the rest of the movie declaring their undying love for this near-stranger, "Cold Mountain" taught me that the effect is even *more* irritating when the characters continually acknowledge how much this conceit doesn't make sense. Thus are we given Inman and Ada, two lovers who are drawn to one another by their mutual awkward manners, muddy accents, and impossibly wide eyes. Ada is a refined gentlewoman without a single useful skill, apparently because cooking was considered 'beneath' her station, an odd feeling to nurture in a family that ostensibly is against slavery. I guess you can be against making other people do your dirty work without actually wanting to, you know, do your own dirty work. Inman is the perfect opposite of Ada, in that he can do pretty much anything, but never talks - an Informed Trait, because by gum he will *not* shut up about how much he loves Ada even though, he repeatedly reminds us, he doesn't know the first thing about her. Seriously, he doesn't know her middle name, what her childhood pet was, or whether or not she's allergic to shellfish - but he's willing to cross the entire country three times over to fling himself into her arms. Isn't that romantic?
Indeed, I can't decide if the best parts of "Cold Mountain" are the *painfully* awkward dialogue between the two lovers ("What color is the sky when it rains?!" and "[Our love] is like a bag of tiny diamonds!!") or Renee Zellweger brutally mocking said dialogue. Poor Zellweger is the one bright spot in this movie, as she shows up to rescue Ada from starvation, while proceeding to harshly chew her out for everything from mooning over a guy she's barely met to starving to death rather than figure out how to kill and skin a rooster to lounging in bed like a queen all day - basically, everything that the viewer would LIKE to say to Ada, but is denied the chance to. My one regret is that Zellweger couldn't have had a twin sister to follow Inman around and gripe HIM out for being such an idiot, but I suppose the Wise Old Woman of the Woods character does a fairly good job of it, even if it does mean we have to listen to *more* Wangst about how Inman lurves Ada even though he doesn't *know* Ada, etc. Really, if anything could have made this movie better, it would have been more Zellweger.
This is probably as good a place as any to insert my plea that Hollywood stop making characters deliberately dense for plot-furthering purposes. When your friend and neighbor has been tortured and nearly killed for 'harboring deserters' by the local BEG, and (1) you've been harboring deserters habitually (and carelessly!) for the last few months and (2) the BEG openly hates you and makes no secret of his obsession with you, it should at least OCCUR to you that you might be in a smidgen of danger. It should definitely occur to the aforementioned tortured neighbor who cheerily hangs out with these new deserters. That's just bad writing.
Oh, yeah, and you get to see Kidman nude in this movie. It's for all of 30 seconds, but that's still 30 seconds that *could* have been devoted to good dialogue and characterization and it wasn't, so it's a waste. But that's just my opinion.
~ Ana Mardoll
Solid, but flawed adaptation of Charles Frazier's classic novelOct 24, 2009 It's easy to applaud writer/director Anthony Minghella for undertaking the daunting task of adapting Charles Frazier's beloved, award winning novel to the silver screen. After transforming tricky material into a lush, romantic, Oscar-winning epic with "The English Patient," he seems to be the logical choice for the job. You can even feel him pulling at a lot of the same strings to make "Cold Mountain" as great as that previous effort.
But in the end, it simply isn't.
The trouble begins with the love story between Inman (Jude Law) and Ada (Nicole Kidman). In the book, the romance between the two is portrayed with subtlety--it is hinted at a lot more than it is described in detail. As Minghella recognizes, readers are a lot more apt to accept subtlety instead of outright explanation than a viewing audience. Unfortunately, he tries too hard to have it both ways: to both capture the fleeting essence of their love affair before Inman leaves to fight in the Civil War as Frazier depicts it, as well as take some creative liberties with it to give the viewer a reason to feel the longing that the characters feel. As a result, the early scenes between Ada and Inman are clumsy and forced.
The good news is that once the film starts following the book, it gets much better. This is when, after recovering from a near-lethal injury to his neck, Inman abandons his post and begins his trek back home to Ada. From this point on, the film earns the book's reputation as being an imaginative retelling of Homer's "Odyssey." Like the main character of that classic work of mythology, Inman encounters many trials and tribulations on the road to his beloved. These include many close encounters with the home guard--a self-appointed group of enforcers who hunt deserters and runaway slaves, the temptation of sirens (in this version, they take the form of cackling, backwoods harpies), and starvation.
Meanwhile, back in Cold Mountain, Ada has troubles of her own. Unable to properly maintain her deceased father's (Donald Sutherland) farm, she finds herself close to starvation, as well. She also faces temptation in the form of a suitor who is an ersatz captain of the home guard. He tries to get her to abandon her hopes of Inman's return and allow him to take care of her. Given her impoverished and malnourished way of life, it is an attractive offer, even if the man who is offering it is not.
Still, she manages to survive on the goodwill of her neighbors and the local townspeople. Then Ruby Thewes (Renee Zellweger) shows up to help her turn around the farm. Zellweger provides the film with its few light moments and works hard to steal every scene she appears in. Ruby is a single-minded woman who is always in motion and is constantly making verbal checklists of things to do.
The split narrative between what is going on in Inman and Ada's lives balances out nicely. On both counts, we get an intimate view of a civilization that has been deeply fractured by the devastation of the Civil War. In a particularly poignant episode, Inman receives food and shelter from a young widow (Natalie Portman) who is nursing a sick baby. This is the one scene from the book that Minghella translates perfectly. And Portman gives a heart-breaking performance as someone not far removed from girlhood whose every day is a struggle to survive.
Moments like that one are the film's saving graces. They are also reminders of how uneven the rest of it is. Although Law gives a nicely understated performance as a simple man who is stoic and shy, yet vulnerable to the charms of true love as well as the horrors of war, his lapses with his southern accent prove to be a bit distracting. On that count, Kidman is an even bigger offender. She is able to emote effectively, but her on-again/off-again accent works against her. Of the cast, Zellweger keeps the steadiest southern drawl, but her overall work her is showy and stunt-like.
For all its faults, the film will move you at certain points. Harrowing images, like when a young soldier stands so close to an explosion that the blast wave rips the seams of his clothing, leave in imprint on your memory. And, I am happy to report that none of the emotional impact of the book's ending has been compromised.
Does the film adequately overcome its flaws enough to be considered truly great, like its source material? Are the artistic missteps overshadowed enough by the things it gets right?
based on 422 reviews
