Cold Mountain (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
by Anthony Minghella
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Brendan Gleeson, Eileen Atkins, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Ren?e ZellwegerDirector: Anthony Minghella
Brand: Disney
Writer: Anthony Minghella
Producer: Albert Berger
Producer: Bob Osher
Producer: Bob Weinstein
Producer: Harvey Weinstein
Producer: Iain Smith
Writer: Charles Frazier
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 154 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-06-29
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Miramax Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Cold Mountain (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Movie Review: A bag of tiny cubic zirconias...
Summary: 2 Stars
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
Summary of Cold Mountain (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Nicole Kidman (Academy Award(R) Winner -- Best Actress, THE HOURS, 2002) stars with Academy Award(R) winner Ren?e 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).Freely adapted from Charles Frazier's beloved bestseller, Cold Mountain boasts an impeccable pedigree as a respectable Civil War love story, offering everything you'd want from a romantic epic except a resonant emotional core. Everything in this sweeping, Odyssean journey depends on believing in the instant love that ignites during a very brief encounter between genteel, city-bred preacher's daughter Ada (Nicole Kidman) and Confederate soldier Inman (Jude Law), who deserts the battlefield to return, weary and wounded, to Ada's inherited farm in the rural town of Cold Mountain, North Carolina. In an epic (but dramatically tenuous) case of absence making hearts grow fonder, Inman endures a treacherous hike fraught with danger (and populated by supporting players including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and others) while the struggling, inexperienced Ada is aided by the high-spirited Ruby (Ren?e Zellweger), forming a powerful farming partnership that transforms Ada into a strong, lovelorn survivor. The film's episodic structure slightly weakens its emotional impact, and it's fairly obvious that director Anthony Minghella is striving to repeat the prestigious romanticism of his Oscar?-winning hit The English Patient. For the most part it works, especially in the dynamic performances of Zellweger and Kidman, and the explosive 1864 battle of Petersburg, Virginia, is recreated with violent, percussive intensity. Those who admired Frazier's novel may regret some of the changes made in Minghella's adaptation (the ending is particularly altered), but Cold Mountain remains a high-class example of grand, old-fashioned filmmaking, boosted by star power of the highest order. --Jeff Shannon
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