My butt knew better.

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2004)

This review has spoilers. I went with high expectations. Its funny,
but my butt seemed to know what would unreel. An hour into the
movie I was squirming uncontrollably, I kept thinking "this movie
had such Oscar hype" but the storyline was kvetched together. I
mean, what was the point? It started well. The protagonists had
halos super polished, Jude apparently has no flaws, and Nicole
frees her slaves. Did things happen just like that in those days?
And she looked so good in this movie, you could see the makeup
trailer in the reflection of the church window. The scenes with
Kidman and Law seemed so self-serving and phony. Can't we
watch actors 'acting' like real people, or do their agents prevent
that in their contracts? I think Nicole used the greatgreatgrandaddy
of her oscar dress-designer to sew the duds she wore in the
movie. Two useless moments could have been cut, the Ribisi
scene, and the old lady with the herbs and british accent who
brings our hero to life. I waited patiently for an ending that tied it
together but the feeling I got was that in the end, it was just so cold
up there in the mountain someone said, lets just have a lotta
horses whinnying and shoot at will, use improvisation. It appeared
to me Minghella probably didn't know Inman was shot until the
editor told him.