Torture. Slow Torture.

Rating: 1/10 (19 January 2004)

Another tiresome bore from Anthony Minghella, who seems to thrive on these big bloated super-productions that take over two and a half hours to do what any reasonable filmmaker would do in about ninety minutes.
The story centers on Inman (a somnambulent Jude Law), who goes off to the Civil War having just barely started a sort-of romance with Nicole Kidman, a Preacher's Daughter who has recently arrived in the prettily photographed backwater town. The story cuts back and forth between Inman's trials and tribulations at war (which is, guess what boys and girls? HELL!!) and Kidman's trials and tribulations back at home (which are, very predictably, incredibly boring). Renee Zellwegger appears on Kidman's farm to help Kidman get it back into shape after Kidman's saintly Daddy dies of Inconvenient Character Disease. Zellwegger acts all squinty and bossy in that Granny Clampett kind of way, dispensing enough Tough Love and Homespun Wisdom to turn the stomach of even the hardiest watcher of Touched By An Angel.
This film is, quite simply, excruciating. Avoid it like the big bloated Oscar-bait Bogus Pretentious Literary Adaptation nonsense that it is.