COLD MOUNTAIN (2003)  ***

Reviewed 1/6/03

If the ENGLISH PATIENT was Anthony Minghella’s CASABLANCA, then COLD MOUNTAIN is his GONE WITH THE WIND. COLD MOUNTAIN looks like your typical middlebrow, star-ladden, “tradition of quality” Oscar bait that the French New Wave once had so much fun castigating, but it also rises above most of its ilk. As can be expected, it’s a lavish motion picture with most of the credit going to Anthony Minghella’s direction and the production design by veteran Dante Ferretti (THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, GANGS OF NEW YORK, TITUS). Its story about two lovers who barely know each other and are separated by the Civil War may be even more romantic in that the two can fantasize all their hopes and dreams into the other without the real person getting in the way. Isn’t that why blossoming love is ever more vibrant than romance well into marriage? It turns out however that Inman (Jude Law, one of three Brits headlining the cast) and Ada (Nicole Kidman) aren’t real at all, but all too perfect. Just on the physical end, Ada looks better than most supermodels and Inman may even be more beautiful despite all the Civil War grime and grind. The courageous-to-a-fault Inman stands morally superior to all those around him – having nothing against slaves, putting a hypocritical priest in his place, and displaying warranted compassion where a war widow cannot. Ada’s only flaw is that she’s too bourgeois, something she repents to feisty, comic-relief Ruby (Renee Zellweger), the woman who comes to aid her on the farm. To add to the archetypes, villain Teague (Ray Winstone), who lusts after Ada, is unremitting in his evil. Still, the advances by the lovers are beautifully awkward, the romantic longing is palpable, the theme on the pervasive horrors of war poignant, and the epic scale impressive (especially the early battle scene). Ruby and Ada’s relationship keeps the middle interesting when Inman’s Odyssean adventures on the road grow stale. The much derided love scene may be poorly filmed in its clichéd montage of heaving skin, but at least its necessary in signifying the consummation of Inman and Ada’s love. What should never have been is the even more clichéd and hokey mystical vision Ada has and the far-too-pat ending.