“What we have lost will never be returned to us. The land will not heal – too much blood. All we can do is learn from the past and make peace with it.” – Ada
Number of Times Seen – 1 (9 Jun 2014)
Brief Synopsis – During the US Civil War, a young Southern deserter journeys back home to his betrothed while she must deal with problems on the Homefront.
My Take on it – This is another movie that I avoided for so many years because it just seemed to be another rehash of an award winning historical butchered by Hollywood.
Unfortunately, I was pretty close on this one.
This wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but certain aspects of teh movie probably worked much better on paper and just seemed to feel drawn out on screen.
The cast is definitely A-list with Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, Brendan Gleeson, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Donald Sutherland all performing extremely well. Zellweger even won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role (which was deserving, but is more probably a belated award for her role in Chicago (2002) the previous year).
I also had a bit of trouble with teh romantic pairing of Kidman and Law since they just don’t seem right together.
The production was doen extremely well and successfully transported the viewer back to the days of The Civil War.
This movie was adapted and directed by Anthony Minghella who also adapted and directed The English Patient (1997) which was a much more successful adaptation from paper to screen.
This movie unfortunately just wasn’t as good as it potentially could have been.
Bottom Line -A bit drawn out and I had trouble believing the matching up of Law and Kidman, but other than that it does an adequate job of transporting us to The South during the waning days of The Civil War. Not nearly as good as Minghella’s The English Patient (1996). Zellwenger was definitely deserving of an Oscar for her role.
Rating – BAFTA Worthy
_______________________________________
Check out my *updated* movie stats here
To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link
To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)
Here is a link to my movie index A-Z
MovieRob 
Pingback: Movies Reviewed Index A-Z |
Pingback: Oscar Best Acting Winners |
It’s a splendid film. The acting, especially the ensemble group (ah, I suspect this is where you thought it drawn out) but it really establishes the culture of the 1860s. I was so impressed with Renee Z. performance and glad she won an Oscar.
LikeLike
Thanks for commenting Cindy. I understand what they were trying to do, but book adaptations like this dont usually do as well as they should.
LikeLike
Pingback: Temporal Top Ten – 2003 |
Pingback: Did They Get it Right? – Best Actor – Oscars 2003 |
Pingback: Did They Get it Right? – Best Supporting Actress – Oscars 2003 | MovieRob