Barely Watchable for the first 30min

Rating: 4/10 (17 May 2006)

This film could have been a much more reasonable 2 hours in duration, if only they had made the decision to sum up the boring first 30 minutes into a 2 minute narrative.
Until Zellweger appeared, I was ready to gouge my eyes out. The first clue that this was going to be a rough 154 minutes was when our main characters opened their mouths for the first time. Wow, you'd think that if you're going to shoot your film in Eastern Europe, throwing an Australian and an Englishman into your lead roles is pushing it too far. Those were, hands down, the worst attempts at southern accents I've ever heard. I really like Law and Kidman, but they just couldn't pull off 19th century Southern if they were sitting on a front porch fanning themselves while eating pecan pie and listening to a conversation about the rising costs of negros.
Zellweger's characterizations were great. She was a little to impolite to be a southerner, but the overall spirit she got right.
Hoffman's brief stint in the film was wonderful and I was ready to rate this film a 9, until he was killed off. It's too bad Hoffman doesn't weigh 40lbs less, he would make a fabulous Inman.
Portman provided an impeccable performance, but again, for too short a period.
At one point Inman mentions that it's a long way to the Blue Ridge.. unfortunately for him, he wasn't actually going to the Blue Ridge since Cold Mountain is mentioned to be in Haywood County. During the Civil War, Haywood County was much larger than present day Haywood County, but still didn't encompass any of the Blue Ridge. Of course, this may explain why the movie was so long.. Jude never stopped to ask for directions.
In the end, this movie just gave me a very hollow feeling. Hollow actors in the lead roles, hollow story with holes at the edges, and a hollow love story that ended in horribly done movie-kisses that looked like two large goldfish trying to swim around in too small a tank.
I'd give it a 9 or 10 if only they had cut it down to just the secondary characters, which were exceedingly watchable.