Boring... For the Most Part
I understand that if my true love was off fighting a war and I didn't know where she was or if she was even alive, I would be upset and times would probably be very hard. It's a nice concept for a movie, with very dramatic and romantic undertones. But tell me, just tell me how I'm supposed to feel sympathy for one character that doesn't talk and one that can't act? If the main characters were more engaging, this film would have been brilliant. Well, maybe if it deleted a bunch of scenes it would have been, but this movie is a complete mess, with very little to redeem it.
Nicole Kidman plays Ada Monroe, a city-dweller who comes to live in the small town of Cold Mountain with her father. She develops a little crush on local worker Inman, who is played by Jude Law. He has a thing for her too, but it must be all superficial since they really don't talk to each other that much. The Civil War begins, and Inman leaves, but not before passionately kissing Ada. Of course they do. After the opening battle, it's revealed that Ada has sent Inman a letter telling him to come back. So he deserts the army and his off on his Homer-like quest, only less exciting than the one Odyseus had. The rest of the movie flows in a rather predictable and dry fashion. Ada's father dies, leaving her to fend for herself. The movie shows her out in the cold, trying and failing to plant crops, while she spouts spectacularly pretentious and complicated dialogue about her lost love. Inman is shown going through countless cornfields, swamps and mountain vistas.
There's simply no tension here, which is something the film needs to have. Inman encounters sirens twice, but really never makes a decision. The first encounted should have been cut completely, as it is really not needed and quite frankly, the scene is extremely uncomfortable. There is only one truly good scene involving Inman, which has him protecting a young mother from Union soldiers. Surprisingly, this mother is none other than Natalie Portman, who must have finally taken acting lessons. But other than that, Inman is boring and Kidman is just hard to watch. She only has one good line of dialogue, though it is quickly buried under her pretentious love stuff.
The only redeeming factor in this movie is Renee Zellwegger, who is the only thing about this movie that isn't horribly cliched. She plays the hard Ruby Thewes, a farm hand that doesn't seem to care about anything but doing her work. Her stubbornness and basic likeableness makes this movie worth watching at least once. But in the end, Cold Mountain is a boring, cliched mess that would have worked if its characters were interesting. You need to have sympathy for characters in these kinds of movies, and when you don't, it fails.