Cold Mountain (R)

Approximately one hour and five minutes into “Cold Mountain,” the movie I had been watching transformed into something else.  A few things occurred to me during that initial one hour and five minutes of torture, namely that Bob and Harvey Weinstein (the Miramax executives who brought us “Good Will Hunting,” “Shakespeare in Love,” “Pulp Fiction,” and many more) had the good sense to insist on the removal of 2 ½ hours of footage.  They had a similar problem with “Kill Bill” recently.  Their solution then was to release that film in two volumes keeping most of Quentin Tarantino’s story intact.  Obviously, the missing 2½ hours of “Cold Mountain” did not warrant that kind of special treatment.  Regardless, for the span of one hour and five minutes the film appears extremely disjointed as the story staggers from scene to scene flashing to and fro across time.  Exactly how much of the confusion, bewilderment, and frustration I felt during said period of time can be attributed to the missing footage will remain unknown until subsequent DVD release.

During that one hour, five minute endurance trial this film lived up to its title—it was nothing more than a frigid stone; nothing to laugh about, nothing to cry about, nothing to root for, and nothing to invoke any emotional response whatsoever.  Sufficient to say the first part of this film did nothing to stir my soul.  The Battle of the Crater is strikingly filmed though nobody really knows why.  The battle was not included in the best selling novel of the same name by Charles Frazier, so why did they spend so much time, effort, and cold hard cash putting it in on film?  Nothing captured even came close to that depicted in “Glory” anyway so it seems like a huge waste on all accounts.  I also found it extremely odd that these filmmakers would attempt to tell a story set in the South without an African-American anywhere in sight.   Well, there was one fighting for the Blue in the opening battle, which doesn’t make any sense at all since the Army was segregated at the time.  Donald Sutherland frees all his slaves and Inman (Jude Law) stumbles across a few runaways, but that’s about it.  There are no African American characters with speaking roles.

The bottom line is that we didn’t need one hour and five minutes to set things up.  All we needed to know was that boy meets girl, girl fancies boy, and boy kisses girl only to go off to war; we needed the death of Ada’s father, one scene establishing the fact that she (Nicole Kidman) can’t make it on her own (not twenty scenes or however many there were—I lost count), and one battle scene after which our hero (Inman) decides to go AWOL.  Instead we are treated to all the above and excessively too much more, including two lengthy battles heeled by a prolonged sequence inside a confederate military hospital.  The audience is subjected to one hour and five minutes of footage that even the most hardcore Civil War enthusiast would question.  My question for Bob and Harvey is but this—Why didn’t you have them cut three hours and thirty-five minutes instead?

Okay, so much for the first hour and five minutes. 

One hour and five minutes into “Cold Mountain” Renee Zellweger showed up and saved the day.  Suddenly this puzzling, emotionless story about too much of nothing became something worth watching.  From the very moment Ruby (Zellweger) graced the screen I began to laugh, I began to cry, I began to feel, and I began to eat more popcorn and drink more cokes. 

This is her film and to keep Zellweger off-screen for one hour and five minutes is not only a mistake, it is downright cruel.  Her performance in this movie is unparalleled.  Ruby might be a little rough around the edges, but Zellweger plays her with such depth that even Kidman’s stoic Ada springs to life.  Miles and miles away, so does Jude Law, who begins an “Odyssey” of his own—much like Odysseus or Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney in “O Brother Where Art Thou”), whichever you prefer.  His journey back home is wrought with peril, laughter, temptation, pain, and heartache.  In the end I found myself hoping his was a journey worth taking.

In all fairness, adaptations are perhaps the most difficult form of screenwriting.  Purists want to see the novel portrayed as-is on film and they are never satisfied; you’ll find plenty on the Internet griping about how far this movie strayed from the original novel.  The only problem with that is that a novel NEVER makes a good film.  You have to adapt it, hence the term—adaptation.  And I want to be fair.  Honest, I do!  All the performances are top-notch and Zellweger’s is a cut above.  As much as I hated the first hour and five minutes of  “Cold Mountain” I must concede that the cinematography is luminous and the direction of the battle scenes sound albeit unnecessary for the real story here which is the sappy romance between a shy workingman and a equally reticent preacher’s daughter.  As sappy Civil War love stories go this motion picture is quite brilliant.  As a hardcore Civil War film I’d have to say it fails miserably.  The mistake was any attempt to mesh to two into one.

A strong word of caution to Christians concerning this film—“Cold Mountain” contains graphic violence, foul language, nudity, strong sexual content, attempted rape, and other scenes depicting human frailty and depravity of varying degrees.  Many Christians are sure to find these offensive and perverse.  If you should think for any reason seeing such things might cause you to stumble, then don’t even bother with this one.  The MPAA gives it a well-deserved R-rating and it should go without saying you should leave the kids at home.  However, considering the setting, “Cold Mountain” is not necessarily explicit merely for the sake of leaving nothing to the imagination like other films.  Once I got passed the first hour, I found it to be a story of hope and love and as such were you not easily offended then I would recommend it as a movie of some merit.
 
I’ll give the film a MATINEE rating, which means it’s not the best film out there but it might be worth an afternoon viewing at a discount price.  Only… you might consider waiting at least one hour after the start time to purchase your ticket. 

This copyrighted article was originally published in Grace-Centered Magazine - A daily publication for Christians that examines tradition and aspects of living the Christian life.