The Cider House Rules

Plot synopsis:
Homer Wells grows up in an orphanage where he spends his childhood "being of use" as a medical assistant to the director, Dr. Wilbur Larch, whose history is told in flashbacks: After a traumatic misadventure with a prostitute as a young man, Wilbur turns his back on sex and love, choosing instead to help women with unwanted pregnancies give birth and then keeping the babies in an orphanage. He makes a point of maintaining an emotional distance from the orphans, so that they can more easily make the transition into an adoptive family, but when it becomes clear that Homer is going to spend his entire childhood at the orphanage, Wilbur trains the orphan as an obstetrician and then comes to love him like a son.
Wilbur's and Homer's lives are complicated by Wilbur also secretly being an abortionist. Wilbur came to this work reluctantly, but he is driven by having seen the horrors of back-alley operations. Homer, upon learning Wilbur's secret, considers it morally wrong.
As a young man, Homer befriends a young couple, Candy Kendall and Wally Worthington, who come to St. Cloud's for an abortion. Homer leaves the orphanage, and returns with them to Ocean View Orchards (Wally's family's orchard) in Heart's Rock, near the Maine coast. Wally and Homer become best friends and Homer develops a secret love for Candy. Wally goes off to serve in the Second World War and his plane is shot down over Burma. He is presumed missing by the military, but Homer and Candy both believe he is dead and move on with their lives, which includes beginning a romantic relationship. When Candy becomes pregnant, they go back to St. Cloud's Orphanage, where their son is born and named Angel.
Subsequently, Wally is found in Burma and returns home, paralyzed from the waist down. He is still able to have sexual intercourse but is sterile due to an infection caught in Burma. They lie to the family about Angel's parentage, claiming that Homer decided to adopt him. Wally and Candy marry shortly afterward, but Candy and Homer maintain a secret affair that lasts some 15 years.
Many years later, teenaged Angel falls in love with Rose. Rose, the daughter of the head migrant worker at the apple orchard, becomes pregnant by her father, and Homer performs an abortion on her. Homer decides to return to the orphanage after the death of Wilbur, to work as the new director. Though he maintains his distaste for abortions, he continues Dr. Larch's legacy of honoring the choice of his patients, and he dreams of the day when abortions are free, legal, and safe, so he'll no longer feel obliged to offer them.
A subplot follows the character Melony, who grew up alongside Homer in the orphanage. She was Homer's first girlfriend in a relationship of circumstances. After Homer leaves the orphanage, so does she in an effort to find him. She eventually becomes an electrician and takes a female lover, Lorna. Melony is an extremely stoic woman, who refuses to press charges against a man who brutally broke her nose and arm so that she can later take revenge herself. She is the catalyst that transforms Homer from his comfortable but not entirely admirable position at the apple orchard to becoming Dr. Larch's replacement at the orphanage.

Tags: dramatic, romantic, storytelling

Review:
This film was a comedy, a tragedy, a romance, a human-interest story, a character study, and a period piece, and each element was excellently done.This was all accomplished without sacrificing the philosophical and emotional depth Irving imbues in all his works.
He captures our admiration immediately, and despite his despicable act, we cannot help but pity him in the end.After having seen all the films that were nominated by the Academy for best picture last year, I have to say that this was my personal favorite.
All the acting is great (especially the nice low key performances by Macguire and Caine), BEAUTIFULLY shot (in Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts), a score that fits the movie like a glove and fully realized three-dimensional characters.
The young boy wants to be more useful in life and goes on his own way to end up working in an apple orchard and learning about lobster fishing.The Maguire boy/man character fights with his own morals and lack of worldliness as the movie progresses.
Interesting casting as well in using Hip-Hop/R&B artists, Erykah Badu and Heavy D in small, but important parts.The movie was a wonderful mix of laughter, tears, and human emotion, and magnificently directed by Halle Lasström.
Part of the charm of "Cider House Rules", a coming-of-age movie with Tobey Maguire at the center, is the finesse with which it presents itself as a "feel good" movie when most of the characters have precious little to feel good about.
Sentimental but well-told, visually beautiful and enjoyable story of an orphanage and the moral dilemmas of abortion, exploring emotional issues from leaving home and fatherhood, to first love, self-discovery and the burdens of responsibility.
Michael Caine works his usual brilliance, Charlize Theron is gorgeous and believable, and Toby Maguire grows up both on the film and off.
I found this movie not only well written, screen-played, played and edited, but I also found it had a true message of goodness in it, which goes beyond the nice story that you might want to dive into from time to time.
I think it is difficult to separate both notions presented by the movie: morality (is abortion a good or a bad thing, and from which point of view as both are present), and equality between Men, in terms of the racial issue.
The "rules" which are part of the movie title in the first place, are imposed on the Afro-Americans who work in the Cider House, assuming they are stupid and unable to behave responsibly and with common sense.
The Cider House Rules (1999)Playing with tough themes for the 19th Century (really tough, like many abortions and a father sleeping with his daughter as well as some casual drug use by a country doctor) and couching everything amidst a Maine culture of doing the best thing as much as humanly possible, this movie is a sentimental masterpiece.
The sentiment keeps it from being quite unqualified masterpiece, but the naturalism of the three main actors (Michael Caine, Tobey Maguire, and Charlize Theron) makes it rather convincing.
It's almost an American fable with moral edges like "To Kill a Mockingbird," tightly knit and with a higher ground charted above the usual trench warfare around the issues, particularly illegal abortions.The director Lasse Hallstrom is the wild card here, and deserves unusual praise coming almost out of nowhere on thisalmost meaning he did have "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" and "My Life as a Dog" behind him.
(I have to confess I found his more recent "Shipping News" unbearable but I know a lot of people were really moved by it.)Beyond the story and the stars, it's really worth saying the there is a cast of secondary characters--nurses at the orphanage and a crew of African-American apple pickers at the orchard--that deserve huge praise.
I find that his stories, in absence of his narrative voice, miss the point (his point).The Cider House Rules, on the other hand, captures the essence of the novel, most notably through Michael Caine's voice-overs and dialogue.
The Cider House Rules is now my favorite movie, and the best I've seen in years.
I've never read the book The Cider House Rules, but this movie seemed to have really touched on something special.
I could not for the life of me understand the hype over "American Beauty" with this movie in the running - it was more heartfelt, had a much better script and a better message overall, and most importantly, left me with a good feeling leaving the theater.
As we also find out at the end of the movie, Michael Caine's character has falsified Homer's medical records in order to disqualify him for military service service.
Lasse Hallstrom's (1999) film is based on John Irving's semi-autobiographical novel.Set in Maine, USA during World War II, it tells the story of a most unusual orphanage and the truly remarkable people who run it.Joining pragmatic and single-minded obstetrician Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine), ably assisted by Nurse Edna (Jane Alexander) and Nurse Angela (Kathy Baker)  all in ward uniform  it soon becomes obvious that this is no ordinary orphanage.As we follow Dr Larch into the maternity unit we first meet his young apprentice Homer Wells (Tobey McGuire) and quickly learn that not everything is as we might expect in this department either.But as our understanding of what counts for 'normal procedure' widens we soon come to feel a genuine sense of involvement in the lives of the children who live there and the unconventional adults who care for them.Dr Larch, as well as a great humanitarian and fan of Charles Dickens, is a drug addict and although Homer is well ahead of his years in female anatomy and physiology, he is overdue for a visit to the outside world.An opportunity comes in the person of Flight Lieutenant Wally Worthington (Paul Rudd) and his prematurely pregnant fiancé Candy Kendall (Charlize Theron).
Accompanied by his unpromisingly named daughter Rose Rose (Erykah Badhu), the small group in the bunk house provide a rich learning environment for the perceptive, but naive Homer.Homer's adventures are many and as the story twists and turns, he finds love and best of all he finds himself through his experience of the wider community he now inhabits.There is so much more in this film that space permits to even hint at.
The cast and crew made this experience so enjoyable, despite the arrival of cold weather and plenty of rain.I urge all John Irving fans to see the film, and to understand that Irving was responsible for the screen adaptation, compressing a huge novel into the standard time format allowable.
Fairly dripping with heartrending melodrama, this coming-of-age story, set in Maine during the 1940s, centers on a boy named Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire) who grows up in an orphanage and then learns about adulthood in the outside world.
The film's direction and color cinematography are bland and mediocre, totally unremarkable."The Cider House Rules" is the kind of film that Hollywood insiders dearly love: sweet and uplifting, a real feel-good movie heavy on manipulative emotionalism.
The Cider House Rules was a very well made film, the settings and camera work was quiet remarkable, the movie was sad, and everybody did a great job with the acting although Toby McGuire smiled too much.
Charlize Theron did a great role, and she suited her character very well, the film at times was very predictable thus making the film a little less interesting than intened, but still Cider House Rules is a film that you should enjoy.ACTING: Very good, i didnt notice any flunkers in the film, everybody was suited into their roles nicely, and each cast member had good acting performances.ACTORS: A great choice with the actors, a great choice, and its evident that they spent alot of time wondering who to cast in the film, and they made a very good choice, this was pleasing.SCRIPT: Quiet good, it did flaw in a few points, like the story didnt really kick off anywhere, it really needed a boost up, and the writers shouldnt have made it so predictable, this could have been better.CINEMA: Fantastic camera work and angles, lovely paronamic views, lovely farms and great scenes in the snow, make Cider House Rules a lovely film to look at.DRAMA: There were some dramatic scenes in the film, but the film in general was sad, yet there was something that kept you smiling at the end, find out what it was by watching it.MUSIC: Music was fairly good, and used appropriately especially during the tense or "sad" scenes, it set the mood on very well.OVERALL: The Cider House Rules by no means was a 5 star movie, yet everything evolves right in the movie, in all it ends up being a lovely Drama film, which may require a few tissues, a very good film, yet far from perfect.***1/2 (3 and a half stars).
It wouldn't be so bad if it was actually saying anything important, but it's not at all.The film is the most basic coming-of-age story of a young man experiencing life for the rest time and it doesn't strive to do...anything, really.
Michael Caine and Delroy Lindo do fine supporting work, but Caine disappears after the first act and Lindo's character goes down a narrative path that is probably the worst thing about the film -- it's so absurd and out of absolutely nowhere, I'm honestly still trying to wrap my head around what that was even doing here.The whole thing sets up so many strands for the plot but doesn't center itself well enough and when it tries to tie all of those strands together it comes apart completely.
Not having read the book, I still felt the story condensed, and some of its other threads not fully realized, like the subject of abortion which starts very strongly, but then fades for a while only to come back later at the end.
Tobey Maguire is likeable as usual, but gives a performance similar to his role in Pleasantville -with little or no emotion and seeming to have more insight into other character's lives than John Irving, the author, himself.
Come Oscar time, you won't see The Cider House Rules in any big category, but still it is a movie that will play well and be enjoyed by many..
Dr. Larch (Caine) and Homer (McGuire) debate the merits of both positions.following the rules: It explores the differences between following the rules and doing what is right and making yourself useful.The appeal of the movie is the essential goodness of the all the characters.
If The Cider House Rules wins even ONE award (and it looks like that's going to be Best Supporting Actor for Michael Caine, who worked with a dialogue coach for two weeks and STILL couldn't even keep his accent consistent), we'll know it was bought, not won.
Wade way back in 1973, or DOING SOMETHING COURAGEOUS, as Candy does when she comforts Rose Rose with her own pregnancy/abortion confession and Homer does when he confronts Mr. Rose  and then breaks his own "rule" about medical procedures.John Irving challenges his readers and the film's viewers to mind their own "business" -- to reject the option of "doing nothing" when faced with injustice and cruelty and to get off their asses and speak out against the pig-headed fools who make the rules that restrict women's choices in real life.I'm annoyed that so many of the "professional" reviews I've read dance around this issue and even stupidly claim  the film is "about nothing" and "goes nowhere."  Maybe these reviewers have seen too many things-go-boom films and can't recognize a film about real people growing.
That would have climaxed the movie in the best way to underscore the vocation Homer chose in going back to the orphanage, leaving Candy, and making sure no more unwanted children ended up in a place where they couldn't possibly find any self worth..
The cider house rules is the best movie of the year, but obviously the Academy Award's voters don't like abortion very much.
I think it is so much better than American beauty, The green mile, The sixth sense...This movie is more than abortion, it talks about life, feelings, death, friendship, loneliness...is a beautiful film.
With all due respect to John Irving's decision to adapt the novel for film (and condense the time period in his original story), I actually believe the strength of the book is its scope of time and breadth of emotion, and I fear it will lose a lot by being changed to fit a standard film format.
Despite his best efforts, Dr. Larch never is able to convince Homer to perform abortions.The film and the book are not the same- the book is simply far too long to include everything.
She was a very powerful character, and Irving feared she'd overpower others in the film, especially since Michael Caine wanted to play a softer Dr. Larch.
It ought to be, because Irving adapted the novel for the film and won an Oscar for his efforts.This is not a fluffy movie to half pay attention to while doing something else.
And so it was with a young man who grew up an orphan in the State of Maine, in the years preceding World War II, in `The Cider House Rules,' directed by Lasse Hallstrom.
Under the tutelage and watchful eye of Dr. Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine), the administrator of the orphanage in which Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire) had lived his whole life, Homer, by 1943, had become quite knowledgeable and adept in the field of medicine.
Hallstrom presents the story with acuity and care, drawing upon the innate humanity of the characters--especially Dr. Larch and Homer-- to bring it all to life.
As good as Caine is, however, the film clearly belongs to Maguire, who gives a masterfully understated performance as Homer.
Highlighted by outstanding performances and the sensitive interpretation and delivery of the story by Hallstrom, `The Cider House Rules' is a touching excursion into the depths of human emotions, and a taste of what life is all about.
"The Cider House Rules" is overall a good film, but its messages are somewhat disjointed and hard to recognize.
I hope to see her in more films, soon.The Cider House Rules deals with the fundamental questions of life and brilliantly discusses them through John Irving's depiction of a Maine orphanage.
I thought Toby Maguire, Michael Caine, Charleze Theron, Paul Rudd, Jane Alexander, Kathy Baker, Erikka Baduu, Heavy D and the rest of the cast put forth a great effort and I urge all the John Irving fans out there to go and enjoy this late Fall release..
Ambitious movie, with some good acting from the great Michael Caine - Tobi Maguire plays the same guy who he always plays which is fine but how many times have you seen his act?
A pitch-perfect performance by Tobey MaGuire highlights this coming-of-age story about an orphan who, as a young adult, decides to leave his orphanage home for his very first time and explore what's out there.
The comments made on abortion are very personal to the characters and in this well-acted movie it makes them important to the viewer.The best thing about this movie is it made me feel good to watch it and I think that most people that give it a chance will feel the same way..
"The Cider House Rules," written by John Irving, stands as one of my favorite novels of all time, so imagine my anticipation of seeing it brought to screen.
I didn't mind Michael Caine (excellent line: "Good night, you princes of Maine -- you kings of New England!"), and though I really like both Toby Maguire and Charlize Theron, neither of them posses the magic of Irving's characters, and certainly don't create an attachment that viewers care about in the film.
The movie has two main characters: the doctor (played by Michael Caine) and Homer (played somewhat lacklusterdly by Tobey Maguire), who is an orphan that doesn't stay adopted.
I then read the book by John Irving and it was 10 times better than the movie even.
This movie has so many beautiful things to show although the story isn't always this "nice" it is an extreme piece of art showing us what true compassion can bring to the world.John Irving must receive an oscar for an incredible tour de force translating such a great book to this script.
When Homer breaks away to take care of himself, he discovers that there are no set rules to life - we must write our own.Cider House Rules is about tearing down the "posted" rules and writing your own, especially when it comes to LOVE.
In "The Cider House Rules," life is presented as taking place within a particular context, in an amazingly realistic way (not everybody is in control, just like in real life -- there are times when things get out of control, and we don't know why).
I have to join all of the previous posts regarding the new film version of John Irving's CIDER HOUSE RULES.
Yet, he does what's right all through the film.I think that Homer Wells learns that the legal rules of society are much like the Cider House Rules; irrelevant..
Tobey McGuire is at his best as Homer Wells, the sheltered orphan desperate for his first taste of life and love, as is the always fabulous Michael Caine as the lovable Dr. Larch.
and this movie proves the point.John Irving wrote the filmscript and even he acknowledged that the film was too "small" to capture the book.
Charming film of life in a Maine orphanage around time of World War II.
The actors are all extremely impressive, Tobey Maguire is perfect for the role of Homer, while Charlize Theron, Paul Rudd and Michael Caine make for an engaging supporting cast.