"Cold Mountain" deserves warm praise

Rating: Null/10 (17 February 2004)

Every really accomplished film starts with a well-crafted script - something too many directors forget, simply plunging into an excess of explosions and special effects. British director and scriptwriter Anthony Minghella, who gave us the excellent "The English Patient", has taken another novel - the 1997 work by Charles Frazier - and turned a compelling narrative into a kind of poor man's "Gone With The Wind", part harrowing portrayal of the brutality of civil war for both combatants (the battle of Petersburg) and those left behind, part aching romance between two souls who barely know one another.
The narrative stretches over five years (1861-1864) and, in the early sections, the switching of chronology is a little confusing, but then it settles into a pattern of two alternating lives that once touched too briefly and must be fused once more in spite of all the geographical and human obstacles.
John Seale's cinematography is superb, with effective use of locations in North Carolina and Romania, and a good deal of effort has gone into the authenticity of costumes and weapons and the use of contemporary music. The acting is of a high order with Jude Law (who filmed with Minghella in "The Talented Mr Ripley") as the taciturn Inman and Nicole Kidman as his much better-educated muse Ada. Kidman is always clever with her accents ("The Hours"), whereas Jude is not so acute, but some others are even worse. The best performance, however, comes from a barely recognisable Renee Zellweger who is simply brilliant as the raw, but capable, Ruby.
Politically the film can be criticised for not making clear what the war was about and black slaves are hardly ever seen and never heard, but "Cold Mountain" is a movie that deserves warm praise and sears into the memory so many powerful images.