A Return to Classica

Rating: 7/10 (30 June 2004)

Probably one of the more pronounced impressions of this film is its dusty and nostalgic feeling for old classics. It has all the right ingredients - a small farm town, a southern belle, her farmhand lover, a war, villains and deceivers everywhere, and your immortal tragedy. But in order to bake a cake it takes more than just ingredients, it also takes exquisite chefs. And who better for such a job than Jude Law, Renee Zellweger, Nicole Kidman, Donald Sutherland, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Natalie Portman.
I found the most difficult part of the movie to digest in terms of plot to be the short-lived courtship of Ada Monroe (Kidman) and Inman (Jude Law). Once you can accept that their almost nonexistent relationship has had an enormous effect on them both, the movie seems to movie along without further questioning. The plot is very simple. It is the Civil War and Inman is a confederate officer gone off to war. Ada agrees to wait for him but months and then years pass. To help her survive, Ruby Thewes (Renee Zellweger) comes to help her on the farm. The two become close friends during dark times. The only thing keeping Inman going out on the battlefield is the letters he receives from Ada. When she tells him to come back to her he obeys, but the journey home proves harder than he ever could have imagined.
I have wondered how true to life some of the elements of this story are. More men died in the Civil War than all the other wars combined. That alone should give some indication of how gruesome life was at that time. But for those that lived on or who sat at home and waited, praying for their loved ones to return, what was it like for them? This movie tries to give some indication of that existence. The horrors it shows I can only hope weren't real but in my gut believe they could have been much worse.

This movie seemed to depict how two young people were trying not to fall in love and yet despite themselves did so completely. Outside influence symbolized by the war is so determined to break them apart in their struggle towards one another. When all else appears to have to gone to hell, these two individuals cling tightly to what they believe and pray they have left - each other.