Better than the preview

Rating: Null/10 (27 February 2004)

I really hated the preview for this movie. The preview had a lot of voice-over narration where Nicole Kidman is reading letters Ada wrote to Inman while he was away at war. This narration is oh so overly dramatic like they were making this movie out to be on a level with Shakespeare. But the movie turned out to be much less annoying. Actually it is pretty good. Jude Law and Renee Zellweger are good in their roles. I would agree that Zellweger deserves an Oscar nomination. Her part is unlike anything she has ever done and it shows her range as an actress. (By the way, if you want to see Renee's best performance, check out Whole Wide World.)

The movie does have a couple of serious flaws, though. For one thing, the whole premise is that Ada and Inman have this overpowering love for each other. Yet they never say more than a few short sentences to each other during the ENTIRE movie. Despite the fact that they barely get to know each other before Inman goes off to war, he is willing to desert his army unit and travel hundreds of miles on foot to get back to her. Yes, I know that some people do fall madly in love without really getting to know the object of their affection. But in a movie, I need more than a few sentences to be able to buy into a relationship, especially if that relationship is the central theme of the movie.
""Major Spoiler** The second problem is that I felt cheated by the ending. You sit there for 2 1/2 hours watching this guy fight and claw his way back to Ada and then he gets killed the morning after he makes it back to her!? When the whole movie is about someone striving to achieve some goal, you don't want that person to die when they finally get there. That would be like Frodo falling into the pit of fire at the end of Lord of the Rings or Seabiscuit dying of a heart attack right after he crosses the finish line. I get so tired of movies that kill off one of the main characters at the end for no purpose other than dramatic effect. You can just imagine the movie-makers sitting around discussing the plot: "This story just isn't dramatic enough. Hey, why don't we have Inman die at the end? That might be just what we need to put us in Oscar contention." 7 out of 10