Starring: Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Brendan Gleeson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Kathy Baker, Donald Sutherland, Eileen Atkins
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
R. 155 mins
An (ironically) cold romance during the Civil War – Cold Mountain is beautifully produced and well-acted but flawed narration undermines this supposedly sweeping epic. Based on the far superior novel by Charles Frazier, the film stars Jude Law as Inman, an injured soldier who struggles to return home to North Carolina where his love, Ada (Nicole Kidman) awaits him. In her lover’s absence, Ada stops tending to her beautiful land and enlists the help of Ruby (Renée Zellweger), a feisty woman who teaches her a few lessons on life and love. Not only did Zellweger win an Oscar for portraying the saving-grace of this film, but she should also be commended for curiously being the only one to maintain a believable Southern accent in this historically questionable tale. Minghella (The English Patient) is shooting so hard for an Oscar that it’s painfully self-satisfying and though Cold Mountain has it’s moments of beauty, the storyline is too ambitious to live up to and the slim beginnings of the romance don’t hold strongly as the film drags forward. Cold Mountain is an old-fashioned spectacle that could use a hot poker to stoke some real soul out of it – * * 1/2
Celluloid Dreams 