Underwhelming pseudo-"Gone With the Wind"

Rating: 5/10 (5 July 2005)

Not sure exactly what I was expecting with this film.... I went into it with a pretty open mind, but I was disappointed nonetheless. The story is just too flimsy to be believed, a very 19th-Century romantic story without much to back up the romance -- in fact more than once the main characters have to comment on how they had barely seen or spoken to each other, as if this makes up for the fact that their relationship is not established properly. I think the performances were generally good, if a bit over-sincere. Jude Law really made me feel for his character, and I was interested in his story as he trekked back to his love, though the episode with Portman fell flat for me, the sequences with Seymour-Hoffman made up for those. Zellwegger is great here, too, really appealing as the sort of tomboyish young woman who might actually have been found at that time in the South. One thing I also appreciated was that it gave a fairly balanced view of the average Southerner's take on the war.... in contrast to Hollywood's sometimes stereotyped approach. The battle sequences are excellent, but too short and falling only in the very early parts of the film. The big problem I had with the film was the unsubstantiated romance, along with some truly bad dialogue. It seems like the film-makers felt compelled to make a big statement on war when they really should have left their story a tragic romance and not tried to make it seem "great". The photography, however, is at times astounding, I particularly remember a shot of Law framed against a sunset early in the film that was quite beautiful.