Inflated emotions

Rating: Null/10 (1 March 2004)

Another finely-crafted foray into 'English Patient' territory from Anthony Minghella. Impossible yet enduring love is cut short by the disasters of war. As costume drama goes, the focus is solipsistic and literary. Yet Nicole and Jude's impossibly handsome features suit what is at base an overblown but well-told love story.
There are, of course, notable interludes to the pore-scouring scenes of abstraction, hiraeth and loss: the gruesome battle scene of the first few minutes, Renée Zellweiger's calamityjaneisms as 'emancipated country female' and various revenge-shooting shenanigans in countryside shacks (reminiscent of 'The Outlaw Josey Wales'). These help to transform the film from a straightforward tearjerker-for-spinsters into the kind of engaging quiet-loud epic that never quite exceeds the constraints of the human bladder. All in all, a solid choice for boy-girl cinemagoing. All performances are strong, even if Jude Law's matinee-idol southern drawl shifts occasionally into self-caricature, with deservedly Oscar-winning comic interludes from Renée Zellweiger, Kiefer Sutherland as a pompous philandering reverend and a banjo-playing cameo from Jack White of the White Stripes. Perhaps the southern landscape could have been better filmed - the landscape-shots are less affectionate than in, say, 'O Brother Where Art Thou'.