FILM REVIEW
"Cold Mountain"
(Miramax)

Entertainment
Art

By ADAM C. KOTLARCZYK

For about two hours and fifteen minutes, Cold Mountain is possibly the best release to come out of a major Hollywood studio this year.

But it’s those last fifteen minutes that leave the audience feeling flat.

An attempt to retell Homer’s Odyssey by setting it in the closing months of the American Civil War, director Anthony Minghella’s (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley) Cold Mountain is beautifully shot and, for the most part, brilliantly scripted, giving the old mythological figures just enough flesh to pass for modern characters and to carry the slightly plodding pace of the film. But in the end, all the creativity caves to the conventional in a romantic (and disappointing) Hollywood ending.

The film opens with a remarkably accurate depiction of the siege at Petersburg, where we meet Confederate soldier Inman Balis (Jude Law), the reluctant Ulysses, who has left his Penelope – Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman) – behind in the small North Carolina town of Cold Mountain. Wounded and almost killed in the battle, Inman decides that he has had enough of war and, despite the risk of being killed by his own countrymen he will try to make his own way home.

Like the classic epic, the film then seems to break down into a series of episodes that introduce a set of unique characters who dramatically underscore the tragedy, comedy, absurdity, injustice, horror, and oh yes, romance of humanity and war. And although Law and Kidman turn in solid performances (it’s hard to get flawless epic heroes wrong, after all), it is the supporting characters that appear as we cross-cut between the traveler and his destination that truly give this film its power.

Ada’s father, the Reverend Monroe (Donald Sutherland) is a wonderfully nuanced character who briefly balances the hope and optimism of the new life he has created for his daughter by moving to Cold Mountain, with the guilt of what he has left behind. His untimely passing leaves Ada with a farm she doesn’t know how to care for, and drives her to the brink of madness and self-destruction.

Enter Ruby, played by Renée Zellweger, whose brilliant performance as a strong and independent, yet layered country woman well deserves her Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination and has already earned her the Golden Globe. Ruby and Ada’s relationship slowly evolves into a symbiotic friendship that benefits and develops each character.

Meanwhile, Inman’s travels bring him into contact with the despicable "reverend" Veasey, a comically amoral companion, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Later, Inman encounters Sara, a tragically lonely and hopeless woman who has been made a widow and single mother by the war, played with heart-rending dignity by Natalie Portman.

These episodes quickly lead us into the film’s final scenes, where all its originality, unpredictability and strong characterizations collapse disappointingly under the burden of Hollywood cliché.

The result is a really good film that leaves viewers disappointed, because it could have been more. The relaxed pace may also turn off some viewers. The cinematography and strong supporting performances still make this a film worth seeing, and likely the best film not nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.