Great flick, but.....

Rating: Null/10 (25 December 2003)

This is a beautiful movie, replete with a boat load of wonderful actors all doing wonderful jobs. It is delight to see. I would like to quibble about some details. Nicole Kidman is just toooo glamorous - even after hardscrabble has set in, she is cruising around in an A-line, black, calf length black coat fit for a stroll down 5th ave. The house Ada Monroe (Kidman) lives in is just ridiculous - it looks like one of those movie lot fake homes in a yuppie upper middle class suburban developer neighborhood. I really don't think they lived that way, and they used whitewash which essentially washed off and needed painting every two years or the wood started showing. This thing could have been in an ad for Duron or Martin-Senour paints. Why the fake big bertha rifled Dahlgrens in the Confederate lines. They should have used a appropriate artillery piece. Frankly showing the fact that the Union Colonel in charge of the attack was seriously drunk and never left his hovel during the attack would have added more verisimilitude and also the hopelessness of the whole affair. Jude Law was incredible - his face changed perceptively from an untouched rural to a truely depressed, horrified, and worn out man whose only desire to keep at it was his drive to see Ada. Great movie though - don't miss it.