not quite great

Rating: Null/10 (19 May 2004)

The book Cold Mountain is a near-perfect example of what people mean when they say that certain books are extremely difficult to effectively transform into a movie. It seems as if certain scenes or plot elements were thrown into the movie purely out of obligation to remain (somewhat)faithful to the book. And even when some scenes were adapted fairly smoothly the literary elements such as irony did not really add anything to the movie [***SPOILER***: i'm referring to the scene in which Natalie Portman's baby is covered up by a soldier who has compassion for the child, and then the same soldier is subsequently shot in the back by Jude Law although Law's character could have allowed him to escape.]
Also I agree with other comments saying that Jude Law and Nicole Kidman had only so-so chemistry. It seemed to me that Mr. Law and Natalie Portman had much more natural energy in their scenes than did the former pair. In general the acting performances well all quite adequate, but not spectacular- except perhaps Renee Zelwegger, whose down-and-dirty character is about as far from her celebrity image as can be, but her character had the effect of being distracting in an almost sideshow-like manner. Overall however the movie did have a number of strong points. The period atmosphere was done fairly well. The musical score was quite good, although I would have preferred if they didn't attempt to replicate the sounds of the locale+time period and stuck to the gentle piano medley backed by occasional orchestral strings (the heart of the movie was the romance, after all). As far as being a true movie experience the film did very well so if you're into period pieces with epic scopes go ahead and rent or buy this movie. In the end, however, although I liked this film I keep thinking about how much better it could have been.