Cold Mountain ('03) 2003, Rated R Buena Vista

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A Buena Vista release. Written and directed by Anthony Minghella; starring Jude Law, Renee Zellweger and Nicole Kidman. Released to DVD on June 29, 2004.

            Like the Wizard of Oz, Hollywood has always attempted to project an image far different than the sum of its parts.  Never has this gap been as large as it is in Miramax’s latest made-for-Oscar-contention drama, Cold Mountain.  Billed as the quintessential American story about true love, bonds between people that transcend war and based off of the rags-to-riches success of North Carolinian author Charles Frazier’s first novel of the same name, the movie Cold Mountain is anything but.  In an amazing turn, Cold Mountain features British and Australian leads, Irish and British co-stars, a British director born to Italian parents and numerous shooting locations in Romania.

            Jude Law stars here as WP Inman, a soft-spoken carpenter living in the town of Cold Mountain, North Carolina during the early 1860’s.  When the Civil War (or War of the States, depending on your perspective) breaks out, Inman’s friends are ecstatic.  They finally have the opportunity to take on their northern oppressors and earn their freedom once and for all.  In one of the ugliest displa.html>spla.html>spla.html>spla.html>splays of peer pressure ever, Inman’s neighbors all but force him to enlist in the Confederate Army, much to the chagrin of the new love in his life, Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman).  As several years of malignant violence pass, Inman is wounded while trying to save a fellow soldier.  Realizing that he made the wrong decision to leave Cold Mountain when he did, Inman deserts the Confederate Army and the principles of the Confederacy as a whole and begins making the trek back to his hometown and the woman he loves.

            On paper, the above plot synopsis doesn’t sound all too bad.  In the hands of the talented Anthony Minghella (The English Patient), it seemed like this could easily form a compelling and reflective period piece about one man’s admonishment of war and his reluctant acceptance that believing in your own decisions in the face of adversity is one of life’s hardest challenges.  Unfortunately, Minghella took another approach to the material.

            Adapting a best-selling and extremely popular novel to the silver screen is a tricky endeavor.  Granted, Minghella has some experience in this respect, having previously adapted Michael Ondjaante’s The English Patient, Patricia Highsmith’s, The Talented Mr. Ripley and even several BBC episodes of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse series, but this know-how didn’t seem to benefit him here on Cold Mountain.

            Frazier’s novel was one of those strangely intimate reads that managed to make the most mundane tasks around the house seem like grand accomplish-ments.  Frazier made the most of this ability by fashioning it into a rather formidable sub-plot involving Monroe’s transformation from glamorous socialite at the time of the first Battle of Bull Run to experienced farm hand by Appomattox.  Try as one might, I just can’t conceive of how a director could create an engaging and dramatic film with this storyline present.  And, despite giving it his best effort, Minghella doesn’t come close to succeeding.

            The overall feel of Cold Mountain is quite dirty.  Literally.  There is detritus and muck everywhere.  Nearly all the male characters on-screen have full, scraggly beards and are clad in very worn, stained clothes.  Even the houses and shacks are dilapidated and moss covered.  Against this backdrop, Kidman’s Ada Monroe stands out as pristine and virginal flower.  Wearing the most expensive and trendy clothes of the time (and clothes that don’t seem too out of fashion currently), Kidman spends the first half of Cold Mountain as though she were on the red carpet.  Her make-up immaculately done, her hair spectacularly coiffed, Kidman is simply gorgeous.  The only trouble with this look comes when she begins to attempt manual labor.  At one point in time, aided by the rugged presence of Renee Zellweger’s Ruby Thewes, Monroe begins to shovel manure while wearing one of her most glamorous dresses.  The result is an unintentionally funny sequence that instantly brings to mind a 19^th Century version of The Simple Life.  I laughed out loud, imagining the teaser commercial featuring Monroe innocently questioning Thewes about what, exactly, manure was.

            Juxtaposing Monroe’s efforts to survive on her farm with Inman’s nearly year-long attempt to get home, Cold Mountain is long, precisely crafted and strangely tiresome.  It should have been compelling to watch Inman on the run from the southerners who were tracking down and killing deserters, but there was little inherent tension in any of Law’s scenes.  Introduced to the audience as a quiet character—there is a scene where Inman’s friends actually express surprise when he starts talking—Minghella gives his lead precious little with which to endear himself to the audience; quiet, reserved and emotionally close-to-the-vest, it’s hard to put a finger on Inman’s character and his relationship with Monroe before he is off to war.  I didn’t particularly care about Inman’s trek because I didn’t know anything particular about him.

            Minghella has created a true epic in Cold Mountain. The amount of time, energy and preparation that were necessary to build the sets involved and to choreograph the grandiose battle sequences are almost unfathomable to me.  The movie and its sets look phenomenal, it’s just a shame that every exchange of dialogue occurring in front of Ferritti’s backdrops is patently boring.  I won’t go so far as to call Cold Mountain a waste of time, but will admit that I am hard pressed to find many reasons why I would recommend that others view Minghella’s film.

chris neumer

yes, it's true: The story in Cold Mountain is based upon an actual journey that a distant relative of author Charles Frazier's took in the waning months of the Civil War.