The Odyssey meets Wuthering Heights

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2004)

This is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Beautifully shot and competently acted, I was completely transported into the story for the full duration. And for all of you who didn't believe the deep love between Ada and Inman, it was a classic "love at first sight" romance. Ada even compares it to the passionate bond between Catherine and Heathcliff when she quotes passages from Wuthering Heights, and I thought Jude and Nicole were extremely convincing.
As audience members, we know it is a tragic love story, full of bird omens and dark visions of the future. The whole story is a reckoning of light and dark, sin and redemption, good and evil, and love and hate. The final scene of Inman's death is gorgeously shot, an echo of the scene with the sheep being slaughtered by the forest woman. Ada and Inman, both in black, with his blood seeping into the white snow, appear as an image of a black bird in flight. Beautiful. The camera loves the carved faces of Nicole and Jude, so luminous and sensuous they recall the classic faces of 1930's movie stars.
The supporting cast was awesome. Every one of them. I did not find Renee's Ruby overdone at all. She was an "original" just like Georgia said.

My only criticism is the landscape. It did not seem like the south, and for several scenes it appeared that Inman was actually traveling north. The town of Cold Mountain looked like a movie set. The accents were not perfect, but believable. And I wondered why Ada and Ruby would head down the mountain together, laughing and dancing, when they knew Teague's gang were after them.
An excellent movie. I can't wait to read the screenplay.