Review
Writer-director Anthony Minghella’s adaptation of Charles Frazier’s best-selling Civil War novel leads all comers with an impressive eight Golden Globe nominations, and is likely to fare as well when the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announces its award finalists on Jan. 27. Just goes to show that the “experts” don’t always know how to pick ‘em. “Cold Mountain” is a good movie, not a great one — and it’s fair to say that there are at least four better films in theaters right now. But award voters tend to fancy epic period pieces featuring big stars, and with Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellweger on board as a fabulous-looking trio of backwoods Southerners in war-torn 19th Century America, “Cold Mountain” certainly fits the profile.
After Inman (Law) is wounded in a brutal battle in Virginia, he decides it’s time to make love, not war. The object of his desire is a preacher’s daughter, Ada (Kidman), who is waiting for him back in his rustic village in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Though he hardly knows her — they met just before he departed for the war — Inman is hopelessly devoted to Ada, no doubt because she’s a cultured beauty who always looks as though she just emerged from a salon. To get to Ada, Inman must travel a great distance on foot while avoiding the menacing Home Guard patrols that roam the countryside, shooting deserters. Along the way, he hooks up with a horny minister (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a kindly old crone (Eileen Atkins) and a comely young widow (Natalie Portman). Back in Cold Mountain, Ada is beset by one hardship after another following the death of her father (Donald Sutherland). Alone on a farm she doesn’t know how to work, Ada’s salvation comes in the form of the film’s most entertaining character, Ruby (Zellweger), a hardscrabble country gal who can milk a cow, mend a fence and cuss like a sailor. “Cold Mountain” is a bleak portrait of the devastating costs of war, but every time she’s on screen, Zellweger manages to brighten things up. Kidman is the bigger star, but make no mistake, this is Zellweger’s picture. Law also impresses mightily as the weary soldier who seems to have lost his spirit on the battlefield. Any doubts that the pretty-boy Brit could convincingly portray a down-home Southerner are erased the moment he utters his first line. Yet despite the best efforts of the stars the movie simply fails to maintain momentum over its two-and-a-half hours, at times dragging so much it seems the projector may grind to a halt. (Rated R for violence and sexuality. Running time: 155 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 24, 2003. Read the original PDF.