jude law, nicole kidman
renee zellweger, eileen atkins
brendan gleeson
unfashionable observations rating: B-
Cold Mountain tells the Homeric story of Inman (Law), a wounded confederate soldier who deserts the losing Confederacy in order to reunite with his pre-war sweetheart, Ada (Kidman). Condemned as a deserter, he must tread carefully on his way back to his mountain community, for the price of being discovered is nothing less than death. Meanwhile, back in his hometown of Cold Mountain, Ada herself struggles to survive. Previously a Southern belle of high class and great wealth, the death of her father comes as a great blow to her psyche, and her social class. Her family wealth all but depleted by the economic effects of the war, she attempts to revive her father’s farm with the help of a tenacious young drifter by the name of Ruby (Zellweger), and in the process unwittingly reinvents herself.
If Cold Mountain teaches us anything, it's that there is an unlimited capacity of human faith in love. Come what may—whether it be war or even death itself—love will always attain an irrational, even self-destructive allegiance from us. Both Inman and Ada sacrifice much of their selves—who they are, and who they should be—in order to accommodate the love-at-first-sight fantasy that they have in their heads. Never mind the fact that they have exchanged little in the way of words or kisses. The very idea of their love is enough to alter their lives so as to accommodate an impossible reunion.
In this sense, love can appropriately be compared to religion: Even though it might not make any rational sense, and even though it might actually involve many acts of self-negation, we adhere to it anyway because of our inherent need to believe that life is worthwhile. Love, like religion, redeems the suffering attendant to life, for it posits that goodness exists. Of course, whether goodness—in the form of love or salvation—actually exists is irrelevant. The mere possibility of its existence is enough to justify all the evils in the world, for it fulfills a spiritual need of being in touch with something more powerful than anything an isolated individual could fathom.
Surprisingly enough, the best performance in this movie does not come from leads Law or Kidman—it comes from supporting actress Renee Zellweger. Zellweger plays a stubborn, witty, and utterly unsinkable loner who has learned the lessons of life the hard way. That she maintains a sense of humor about it is all the more admirable. In a way, Zellweger’s character encapsulates the whole of the movie: Ruby is able to keep her head up and smile as she sees the thunderclouds approaching. Even as the rain ruins her clothes and her day, she is able to laugh at herself and at life because it is the only appropriate response to a sometimes unjust world.
Even so, Minghella’s film never quite manages to get past the predictability of its storyline. That he chooses an old Homeric myth and a Civil War backdrop to illustrate his love story is not the problem. The problem is that there is relatively little else for the audience to hang onto besides Zellweger’s breakthrough performance. We’ve been down this road before, and it was as worn-out then as it is now. While well-made and adequately acted, Cold Mountain lacks the spark necessary to make it a truly memorable drama along the lines of Minghella’s own 1999 masterpiece, The Talented Mr. Ripley.
I’d give Anthony Minghella’s Cold Mountain a B-.
