Excellent Film

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2004)

A great film; the best thing I've seen on the screen in recent memory (and this from someone who thinks the vast majority of major films these days are absolute crapola). I was enthralled from the first moment to the last. Excellent acting by all concerned, outstanding visually, and an equally strong score. When I finished the book a couple years ago, my reaction was: God, I hope they don't try and make a movie of this; they'll ruin it. Well, they made the movie, and it stayed true to the book; a minor masterpiece. And--will miracles never cease!--they didn't indulge in the political correctness I;d been dreading.
I'm astounded that so many reviewers here panned this movie. Did I love this film just because I read the book? I don't think so. I think some of the people who panned it brought a post-modern sensibility to viewing it. I don't know what they expected; the latest Quentin Tarrantino comic book gore-fest, perhaps? One reviewer said it wasn't nearly as good as the latest Lord of the The Rings movie (I wonder what that says about the juvenile nature of the culture we live in?). Others decided (beforehand, perhaps)that Rene Zellweiger gave the outstanding performance while Kidman and Jude were terrible (maybe they felt that because Ms. Z didn't get the Oscar for "Chicago" she "deserved" the be the star of this film). Her performance is terrific, but so is that of Kidman and Jude.
Yeah, this movie has gotten a lot of hype. Is that what's motivating the nay-sayers? I don't really care if it's been hyped or not and I don't car if gets the over-rated Oscar. It's an outstanding film no matter how you look at it.
Others complained that Kidman's and Jude's Southern accents were flawed. They weren't; I didn't notice any lapses at all, but that may have been because their respective performances were so it it over-rode any so-called lapses. I would never have guessed that Kidman was Australian, based on her dialog, which I found convincingly southern (my late grandmother hailed from Alabama, I might note).
I found the love affair between Ada and Inman thoroughly convincing. People DID fall in love in that era on the basis of much less than a kiss, and the letters which Inman 'reads' in his mind by way of Kidman's voice-over conveys the emotions nicely. Again, I read the book, so the love affair came across even more strongly for me.
Yes, I'll go see Son of Lord of the Rings, or whatever it's called, and I'll probably enjoy it as much as it I did the previous 'Rings,' but on a different level. Lord of the Rings is a kid's movie (even if it's the kid in all of us). Cold Mountain is for adults. Don't miss it!