Review: Cold Mountain (**)

COLD MOUNTAIN
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): **


Two gorgeous actors with zero on-screen chemistry, Jude Law and Nicole
Kidman star in this year's big Christmas release, COLD MOUNTAIN. Based on a
Charles Frazier novel, it is written and directed by Anthony Minghella, who
garnered a writing nomination and a directing Oscar for THE ENGLISH PATIENT,
which is surprising given how inert this latest picture is.



This Civil War romance and anti-war drama is a snoozer that is long,
literary and lifeless. Inman (Law) says that he is "like every fool sent out
to fight with a flag and a lie." After meeting Ada (Kidman) very briefly in
the beginning, he deserts from the Confederate army and spends most of the
rest of the movie trying to get back to her. Meanwhile back home, Ada and
her comedic sidekick, Ruby Thewes (Renée Zellweger), are busy fixing up
Ada's old farm. When the lovers finally are reunited in the last part of the
last act, their meeting is too convenience and not realistically acted.
Despite all of the Oscar buzz about their acting in COLD MOUNTAIN, Law and
Kidman are so stoic that they might as well have sent in their headshots
rather that wasting their time showing up on the set.



The film's few battles are so confusing that it's never clear who is
fighting whom, but Minghella does create a couple of impressive sequences.
Looking like a rugby game in the mud, the opening fight is a blur of blood
and bodies. Mostly, however, the movie is one long road trip, as Inman meets
various strangers on his long journey home. The women he comes upon,
including a lonely widow named Sara (Natalie Portman), want to offer him
more than just companionship, but he stays faithful to Ada, a woman with
whom he has shared at most a few dozen words of conversation. The strangest
of Inman's encounters, which plays like a bizarre DELIVERANCE outtake,
occurs when a mountain man (Giovanni Ribisi) and his sexually needy family
offer Inman and his new traveling companion (Philip Seymour Hoffman) some
erotic but dangerous hospitality.



Mainly the movie tries so hard to be literary that it doesn't take enough
time to be compelling or convincing. With its frequent use of voice-over for
the key points, the movie-going experience feels more like listening to a
long book on tape than watching a motion picture.



The film is consistently beautiful, and the production values are uniformly
high. Moving as slow as molasses in winter, the movie offers little more
that candy for our eyes. Trying to stay awake during its long 156 minutes is
a real trial. About the best that can be said of COLD MOUNTAIN is that it
ends completely predictably but quite well.



COLD MOUNTAIN runs 2:36. The film is rated R for "violence and sexuality"
and would be acceptable for older teenagers.



The film opens nationwide in the United States on Christmas Day, 2003. In
the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century
theaters and the Camera Cinemas.



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