Cold at the core

Cold Mountain has all the ingredients of a great movie, but it is ultimately done in by its sense of self importance.

The film which is adapted from Charles Frazier's novel of the same title, concerns two lovers (Nicole Kidman and Jude Law) who are forced apart by the outbreak of the Civil War. While some flashbacks are devoted to their brief courtship, most of the movie takes place during wartime. Law's central challenge is to return to Kidman, while hers is to keep hope alive that he will return. The eccentric characters they encounter along the way are what ultimately keeps this movie afloat.

I say this movie's attempts to be an epic ultimately hurt it for the following reasons. First, at three hours, it was too long. The movie is packed with supporting actors depicted in scenes which are not central to the overall plot. While most of these scenes work well due to excellent performances from supporting cast members such as Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman and especially Renee Zellweger, a couple are begging to be cut. Most notable are the scenes with Natalie Portman, who's acting is as flat as ever. The central purpose of these scenes of temptation seems to be to show the extent of Law's love for Kidman and his overall goodness, but a better movie could have brought out these qualities in less obvious, distracting and sentimental ways.

Unfortunately the manipulation, melodrama, and self-consciousness are not limited to that scene. Several other potentially powerful scenes were rendered impotent by being over-stylized. The use of the tired symbolism of birds taking flight, with building musical crescendo, during a key scene at the end provides but one example of such a distraction that abruptly yanked me out of the movie.

Another central problem with this film is the lack of heat between Law and Kidman; his acting in particular was unconvincing. By the end I was only mildly interested in whether Law and Kidman were able to get back together; I felt any scenes they might have together wouldn't match the energy of scenes involving the supporting actors, who frankly stole the show.

But thank goodness they did steal the show. The movie borrows from a tradition in the traveling epic that dates back at least as far as The Outlaw Josie Wales (and probably a lot further), by introducing eccentric characters in seemingly the most random of places. Some of the characters here are as enjoyable as those encountered in the former. But the same cannot by any means be said of the movie as a whole, which, like the New York Knicks, lacks a solid center.

Well, I'd slog 400 miles for Nicole, too

COLD MOUNTAIN inspired more admiration than affection. And seeing it on Christmas Eve was a downer.

The film begins on July 30, 1864, when Union troops, having tunneled under the Confederate fortifications around Petersburg, VA, blast a giant hole in the stubborn, Southern defensive line with a monster mine. In one of the Civil War's biggest boondoggles, the Battle of the Crater, the Federals managed to transform what was potentially a war-winning assault into complete disaster. Shortly thereafter, Reb soldier Inman (Jude Law) is shot in the throat. While recovering in a field hospital, he receives a letter from his sweetheart, Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman), back in Cold Mountain, North Carolina. Ada bemoans the hardships that have beset her since her father's death, and beseeches Inman to come home. Sick of war, Inman skedaddles, and begins the dangerous trudge back to Ada's Blue Ridge Mountains farm, about 400 miles as the crow flies. In the meantime, Ida, a lady of genteel upbringing, who can arrange flowers and play the piano but can't boil water or plant a vegetable, is running her patrimony into the ground.

COLD MOUNTAIN isn't the story of two soul mates together, but rather separate tales of two people desperately seeking each other out on the basis of the briefest of pre-war acquaintances - a few words and a single kiss.

Law's Inman is the strong, silent type whose forte is a long-suffering perseverance that perhaps inspires viewer admiration more than sympathy, even as he encounters the varied perils of his trek: Yankee cavalry, Confederate Home Guardsman hunting deserters, a lonely war widow in distress, and treacherous homesteaders. In the meantime, Kidman's Ada is a bit more animated as she, with the help of Ruby (Renee Zellweger), learns to be a successful farmer and stay gorgeous at the same time. Ruby, an unsophisticated, proud, self-sufficient, country gal with a smart mouth and an attitude, is perhaps the story's most engaging character. Though the rural, Southern accent sometimes seems a bit over the top, Renee's role is about as distant as one can get from her triumph as bimbo Roxie Hart in last year's Best Picture, CHICAGO.

For me, the most intriguing aspect of COLD MOUNTAIN is in the production notes. The film's director, Anthony Minghella, wanted to film in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains around Asheville, but logging and modern life have destroyed the primal density of the area's forests. Then, Canada's forests were found not to be an accurate match. Now what? It wasn't until executive producer, Iain Smith, on a walking vacation in Romania, recognized the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania as resembling an untouched North Carolina. Romania!? In any case, the Battle of the Crater was shot near Bucharest, and Ada's Black Cove Farm and Cold Mountain Town were all outdoor sets constructed in the Transylvanian Alps. And the extras posing as Union and Rebel troops in the opening slaughter were the Romanian Armed Forces. How far we've come from the bad old days of the Cold War!

COLD MOUNTAIN is certainly one of the better films of 2003, but, for me, it lacked the chemistry to be nominated for Best Picture, especially when stacked up against the other exceptional candidates now in the theaters. Only Zellweger, perhaps, may come out of it with a nod for Best Supporting Actor. It's an excellent period piece worth seeing, especially if you're a Civil War buff.

A waste of time

I absolutely hated this movie. Nicole Kidman is too old to play such a young character. The story started depressing and ended suicidal! I actually bought this dvd and after I watched it one time, I threw it in the trash. The only good thing about it was Renee Z's excellent rendition of a tough country girl. Only watch this movie if you like self-punishment.