Good, but not an unmitigated success

Rating: 7/10 (31 January 2005)

I never bothered to see Cold Mountain in the theater, because the style and subject matter didn't off-hand appeal to me. Still, I felt I had to see it eventually, so I thought I'd give it a try now.
It's a good movie, but I also understand why it has many negative reviews. It surely isn't very engaging, especially not in the beginning. I do think it gets better and better as it goes along, with a notable improvement as soon as Renee Zellweger appears. Natalie Portman was great, also.
But although I think Nicole Kidman is absolutely beautiful in this movie, it does start off being rather dull. As it proceeds, however, one starts being caught up in the terrors of the civil war and the way the land was left largely without men, because the few ones left - even the old ones - would be shot by the patrolling deserter hunters. It was a momentary total breakdown of civilization. I don't know exactly how realistically this movie portrays the situation, but I assume it's very realistic indeed.
The ending of the movie was bittersweet. I was quite annoyed that Inman managed to return only to get shot dead by the last ranger - it seemed to invalidate all the hardships he'd gone through on his quest back to Ada. But the final scenes, with their daughter, Ruby's father and husband and their children, and the beautiful music they played, actually managed to restore my faith in the beauty and continuity of life (in the context of the movie's story). It shouldn't all ride on single individuals; what really matters is that life, in a broader general sense, goes on. It is life itself that matters, and we are all part of it. Every individual is somehow present in every other individual, in every blade of grass, in the land itself. This beauty; this appreciation for all life, is greater than the love for a single person, because it spurs those who survive to live on. And this movie's ending actually manages to convey that. So the ending was very fulfilling to me after all.
Still, the entertainment value of the movie wasn't great, which is why I will not rate it higher than a 7 out of 10.