Emotionally draining. A study in human misery.

Rating: Null/10 (10 February 2004)

CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS
Am I the only person who found this superbly acted and beautifully shot movie an extremely emotionally draining experience??
I am writing this over a week after seeing this movie, in an attempt to write a review that is objective rather than emotional, but I still can't, so I give up!
I started to sob early on in the movie during the battle scene while watching the soldiers get their faces trampled into the mud, and barely stopped until the end. Zellweger's character provided a relatively tiny bit of 'light relief', but not enough. The misery went on, and on, and on... Sally Swanger getting her fingers jammed in the fence while watching her sons get shot and her husband hanged, lovely woman with baby almost getting raped ( you just knew that this would happen to her again, but next time Inman wouldn't be around to save her ), simple fat banjo player thinking he was posing for a photo just before he was shot and on it went...I think at around this point I sent an sms to a friend asking if it ended well, as although it was undeniably a great movie, I was feeling a bit emotionally 'wrung out'. I only wish they had replied....
I had to stop myself from getting up on my seat and shouting along with Nicole, 'NOOOOOO, INMAN, NOOOOO....'.