Ready to Rent Ready to Rent (July 02, 2004)

Cold Mountain

Miramax Home Video VHS & DVD 2 hrs 35 mins Director: Anthony Minghella

Director Anthony Minghella's Euromerican retelling of author Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain" is one of the most strange releases of 2003. It is a bizarre exercise for an Academy Award consideration in that it achieves a level of vulgar self-grandiosity, common in all "serious" big budget films. Minghella has always been polarized when dealing with his material. He managed to ring all the poetics out of Michael Ondaatje's "The English Patient" so that the film appeared stillborn and sterilized, while turning the pulp intimacies of the "The Talented Mr. Ripley" into a sexually naive but entertaining thriller. Mingella's adaptation of "Cold Mountain," however, turns out to be a series of technical miscalculations, brought about by budget constraints and, ultimately, suspect comprehension of the American Civil war.

The film is another retelling of Homer's "The Odyssey," only this time set in the dark days of the Civil War. Inman (Jude Law) is an enlisted confederate, whose free time is spent yearning for Ada (Nicole Kidman), his gal whom he knew for a too brief period before enlisting. Inman, as we are introduced, is dirtied and disillusioned, with only the memories of his hometown of Cold Mountain, N.C., to give comfort. In a strangely brutal opening, Inman and the audience are subjected to carnage put to the aching strains of a church hymn (the soundtrack to this film is very haunting), where a sneaky Union offensive plan goes awry. It is a devastating scene that leaves the viewer, and the film, to wander in its wake.

The rest of "Cold Mountain" deals partly with Inman's journey home and the vultures, both emotional and physical, ready to pick him and the ravaged South to pieces. Dancing with Inman's troubles is the story of Ada and her survival at home. Ada is plagued by dastardly homeguards ready for a marryin' her for her land until she is saved by the spunky (and grating) Ruby (Renee Zellweger), who teaches Ada the fineries of farm life among the ever-threatening cliches of the plot. The film just staggers to its conclusion, which seems to have been taken out of some Michael Bay/James Cameron/Joel Schumacher/any-other-annoying-director who mistakes robotic story mechanics and pretty pictures for actual soul. It is the heart and soul, as in "The English Patient," that have been drained out of "Cold Mountain." Its major mistake is its casting of otherwise excellent British and Australian actors in major roles. I usually turn a blind eye to casting because acting depends on the capabilities of the individual, but in this case it becomes quite distracting. British Jude Law, normally an energetic, exciting actor, seems lifeless in this film, as if its seriousness has overwhelmed him. Australian Nicole Kidman, who constantly challenges (and balances) herself with offbeat films, seems lost without a character. The major piece of miscasting, however, is the landscape itself. Doubling for the American South because of budget constraints, Hungary makes a poor substitute for the sultry ancientness of Georgia and the Carolinas - the vistas of Hungary look eerily like our Sierra Nevada. In a book that details the poetic externalization of the relationship between a man and his land, this is a major problem. -Joe Ramirez

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