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Cold Mountain is directed by Anthony Minghella who also adapts to screenplay from Charles Frazier's novel of the same name. It stars Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Eileen Atkins, Kathy Baker, Brendan Gleeson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ray Winstone and Natalie Portman.Music is scored by Gabriel Yared and cinematography by John Seale. Plot finds Law as W.P. Inman, a wounded deserter from the Confederate army who is trying to make his way back to North Carolina to rekindle a fledgling romance with Ada Monroe (Kidman).

This is Minghella's world and the American Civil War movie gets a double shot in the arm as Cold Mountain not only deals in the home front, but also in the perilous life of the soldier. Add into the mix a fire cracker of an opening, a central romance and an array of expertly drawn characters, and it's safe to say that Minghella's film is not only epic in production, but also in story telling. In essence the film is about love, friendships and learning to cope under the most trying of circumstances, but the director doesn't paint it with a sentimental brush. As the three strands of the narrative play out, tone is often gritty, intense, sorrowful even, with Minghella cribbing from the Anthony Mann Western book by having the stunning landscapes form part of the characters emotional world.

Come back to me, come back to me…

Story is strong, even if the key romance is soft; since it's told mostly in flash backs, but those flash backs are threaded into the main seam of Ada's life on the home front and Inman's perilous odyssey. She, befriended by hard working, dirty handed, Ruby Thewes (Zellewegger excellent); who also provides the only moments of levity within, he, meeting up with a number of interesting characters, both good and bad. This of course makes the film episodic, but in this instance it's a good thing, mainly because characters are so utterly compelling. Hoffman as a less than honourable priest and Portman as a young woman out in a wood cabin, alone with her sick baby, they stand out. But there's also the Home Guard attached enforcers led by blood thirsty Teague (Winstone) and a potent thread involving Ruby's fiddle playing father, Stobrod (Gleeson as usual a considerable screen presence).

On the technical front it's hard to find fault, it's a tip top production. Romania's mountains, rolling hills and forests form the backdrop to most of the action, with John Seale's Academy Award nominated photography neatly passing for a rugged North Carolina. While the costumes, set design and Yared's score also add impetus to the feel of the time. There's some minor itches, such as fluctuating accents and the delicacy of the romance lacking the passion to drive such a journey by Inman on, but they are not flaws. Such is the strength of Minghella's story telling ability, Cold Mountain still comes out as great cinema. A film that can stay in your mind for days after viewing it. Bleak yet subtle, savage yet tender, a different sort of Civil war movie. Amen to that. 9/10

Anthony Minghela's (writer/director) Cold Mountain is a carefully constructed, sensitive, and intelligent drama set in the social context of the confederacy during the civil war. It deals with the politics of the war in a very subtle and realistic manner. While it accurately depicts the brutality and inhumanity of that war, it also does something that many films related to this period do not handle effectively - Cold Mountain studies the southern context from the inside out, and portrays changes among the non-slave owning common people wrought by the war. Almost uniquely, Cold Mountain does not over-generalize southerners, northerners or anybody else.

The film surfs through genres as needed - never presenting a dull moment. It is a romance, a war story, an action-adventure and historical fiction, all nicely woven into one.

The story centers on Inman (Jude Law) and Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman), who are smitten with each other for very simple reasons. As this young romance begins to bud, Inman enlists in the confederate army, taking with him a book Ada has given him and a photograph of her. Ada's character is one of the most brilliant aspects of the film, which is important because the audience experiences this film from a third person perspective, but the story is clearly hers from the beginning to the end. Ada is an intelligent southern belle and daughter of a liberal minister. She begins the film as a daddy's girl skilled in many of the arts that southern women who have been surrounded by servants most of their lives were expected to learn. In other words, as she admits to Ruby Thewes (Renee Zellweger), she is a master of everything useless.

Ada's father passes on, and she is left to manage his modest estate by herself. With no experience of this sort, she struggles, and survives by holding the memory of Inman close to her heart. Ruby enters the picture as a tough young woman who has been raised by a drunk and negligent father. Ruby has all the skills and abilities Ada lacks, and as they become inseparable business partners, they grow to love one another as best friends. Inman's experience is radically different, but something of a mirror image. During his participation in the war, he sees many friends killed for causes they don't really believe in, and decides to desert. Nobody he meets comes to his rescue as he begins the thousand mile walk back to Cold Mountain and Ada, and most of those he meets die.

The bulk of the film takes place during Inman's long walk, following both of the protagonists as they live, learn, grow and change. An on-going act of will borne of desperation preserves their intense passionate love. For Inman, it is his only source of hope in a world of pure desperation. For Ada, it is very much the same thing, but also a symbol and remnant of the old south - a world which is rapidly passing.

The cinematography is powerful and breathtaking. There are beautiful shots of Appalachian landscapes which give the film a strong sense of history. The script and editing are also extremely strong - emphasizing the broad class and educational differences reflected in the ante bellum southern dialects of the middle and lower classes. With the cast of this film, nothing short of perfection should be expected. And the cast, mostly, rises to the occasion. My one criticism, however, relates to the accents adopted by Kidman and Law's characters. An Australian and a Brit probably should not be expected to accurately reproduce southern American speech, but there are a few occasions where these two exceptionally gifted actors produce distracting vocal slips. I admit my oversensitivity to this, and can say with some confidence that it won't bother most people. Zellweger's performance is outstanding and she creates a character I will remember into my senescence.

Very highly recommended.

Anthony Minghella knew something of the Civil War in locating his story in North Carolina. Of all the states that seceded to form the Confederacy, North Carolina may have been the most reluctant. It's Governor Zebulon Vance who is mentioned in the story dragged his feet in giving help to the Confederate government and its citizens save for the east where the plantations were never really embraced the Southern cause. Jude Law's attitude about fighting for a rich man to own slaves was not at all uncommon in North Carolina.

Which after a well staged recreation of the siege at Petersburg which when the north blew up the Confederate defenses by tunneling under and mining them with explosives did not have the desired result, Law decides he's sick of war and just quits to go back to his sweetheart Nicole Kidman on Cold Mountain. In the meantime Nicole is having her own problems just keeping body, soul, and property together on the small family farm. So the film proceeds along two tracks of Law's journey and Kidman's problems.

The stronger track for me is clearly Kidman and her problems. Renee Zellweger won a Best Supporting Actress Award for playing a young white trash woman who Kidman takes on for just board and feed to help with the farm. Without her help the farm's survival would be problematic although she has to put up with some pithy observation as well. Zellweger invests this simple character with so many dimensions her performance even without the Oscar capping it is her personal best. Kidman while not to the plantation manor born being the daughter of minister Donald Sutherland also is not used to manual farm labor. She grows in character as the film progresses.

As for Law and Kidman as well he has to worry about the Home guard, a self appointed group of militia taking over because official government machinery has broken down. Probably before the war they were slave catchers, now they hunt deserters and those who aid and abet them. Giovanni Ribisi also scores well as a young man in the home guard who declined to serve at places like Petersburg. Ribisi is some piece of work.

Besides Zellweger's Oscar, Cold Mountain was deservedly nominated for a flock of other Oscars. It's a marvelous look at the decline of the Confederacy, a cause that simply would not die quietly. In its own way the survivors are invested with the same kind of nobility that the Gone With The Wind cast was.

Anthony Mingheller's astounding film cleverly sweeps the audience into the horrors of war at its beginning. He then introduces his two principle characters who would gradually move the audience into their world wrought by war and hardship. We watch as the characters begin to unravel their internal tortures and their need to subdue their isolation to face their regrets and hope for the future. This is an absolutely fabulous movie that portrays the stunning performances of its stellar cast of actors and the overwhelming raw landscapes that are kept in sync with their events and moods. Observe the stages of emotional changes in the characters. So amazingly and magnificently captured at different camera angles, from scene to scene against the cold, mountainous countryside!

This film isn't throwing off longwinded dialogue and lengthy physical encounters between Jude Law's Inman and Nicole Kidman's Ada to reveal the meeting of two souls searching for a meaningful existence. Yep, it's that brief and silent stare of Inman as he confronts the graciously low-keyed, prim and proper Ada that explicitly puts their sensory awareness of each other so powerfully on screen. As the events flow, I was completely mesmerized by the Inman character watching him transcend to his sense of isolation and his developing disillusion with his world. On the other hand, I couldn't take my eyes off the immaculately well-bred and gorgeous Ada as she succumbs into a scrawny hapless damsel in complete distress. It's fascinating to watch the couple adapt to situations beyond their control and to study the emotional and behavioral attitudes of two human beings altering at such opposing magnitude as a result of one war. Observe how the once popular Inman slips into desolation in the battlefield, becoming even more tormented from his world as he meets up with some very strange characters. Will he ever find solace with these characters, or with Ada at the end? Will Ada, while feeling alienated from her new abode, at the beginning of the film and with the death of her father, be able to battle her insecurity to become spiritually enlightened and physically capable with the help of her new acquaintances? Is she able to embraces what the farmland has to offer her? And will Inman be capable of escaping what the gruesome battlefield has come to mean to him? This film lays out an enormous ground for the examination of the effects a war on different individuals.

The film continues to remind the audience that Ada and Inman are bound together by their haunting memories of one another. That, indeed, is beautifully captured by the expressions on Law and Kidman's faces. The symbolisms, throughout the film, are plentiful and brilliantly ascribed, allowing the audience to join the dots to the destinies of the couple. Even crows, clearly suggesting doom and destruction, never fail to demonstrate the dark instincts that trouble a man's soul. And those women Inman meets in his journey seem to trigger the expectation of the audience to see him drawing closer to the woman he loves and to home. Even these characters, encountered by Inman, provide a picture of how different people react to the war. But will war ultimately bring peace and safety to its protagonists? This film is a masterpiece that will provide much food for thought.

Renee Zwellweger is phenomenal in her boisterously loud 'Ruby' role. She brings another aspect of the American woman that's so different in breeding from Kidman's Ada. Both are educated in their different cultural way of life. What can Ada learn from Ruby, the frontier woman who sees the 'hands and knees' toiling as the only way of survival in her community? Zwellweger provides the comic relief that's much needed for this powerfully intense film. She's superb in her role as the beacon of strength and hope for injecting a meaningful existence of living. Unlike the soldiers or the hypocritical Home Guard authorities that use guns to destroy their enemies, Ruby uses her hands-on skills to beat the odds of survival. It's uncannily delightful to watch her interacting with Kidman's character. She, Law and Kidman are definitely worthy of being recipients of the Oscar statuettes. They exhibit their superb non-stop performing talents in this film with their onscreen appearances. The Q&A session with Brendon Gleeson (who plays Ruby's father), has prompted me to want to go see this movie again - to watch closely how the strength of the film's womenfolk can make a difference to the human beings' survival instincts. I want to study again how hellish wars are for destroying and crippling, not only the physical, but the mental aspects of the masculine race. And Gleeson does drive home an interesting question: When these mountain folks `volunteer' to fight a war, how come they should be penalized as deserters if they were to decide to opt out of it?

This film is a MUST-SEE. It's beautifully crafted, assembled, and absolutely mesmerizing in all aspects of filmmaking techniques and style. The music score and soundtracks are so appropriate locked into the events and the moods of the characters. And the film's title? It does project its allegorical appeal.

A+

The movie deals about American Civil War (1861-1865) , the starring (Jude Law , though Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Eric Bana were all considered for this role) meets Ada (Nicole Kidman , though Julia Roberts and Cate Blanchett were both considered) in ¨Cold mountain¨ and they fall in love . Then he's enlisted and participates in Battle of Saint Petesburg (Virginia 1864). He leaves and sets off to find his lover . Being dead her father (Donald Sutherland), Nicole will have to confront a lot of misfortunes until that she's helped by a valiant woman (Renee Zellweger) .

The picture is overlong , runtime is approx. three hours but is neither boring , nor tiring , but entertaining for the reason that happen several events . The film blends epic battles, drama , a love story, shootouts and a little bit of violence . The motion picture is pretty strong with crude scenes : the bloody battles ,rampages , rape , murders...it has many violent shots , for that reason the film is rated ¨R¨ as the violence is extreme with cruel killings , besides some sex scenes.

In United States attained a moderated success in spite of nomination to various Oscars , though only obtained one award to support cast for Renee Zellweger . In Europe achieved much more success at the box office . The picture has spectacular sets and some wonderful snowy and natural landscapes. Many of the scenes were shot in the Carpathian mountains in Romania . The production design and set design by Dante Ferretti is breathtaking .

Jude Law and Nicole Kidman interpretation is top notch likeness to Renee Zellweger rightly rewarded . The secondary actors are first rate : The hideous Ray Winstone , the renegade priest Philip Seymour Hoffman , the kind Bernard Gleeson , everybody are good. Gabriel Yared musical score is romantic and magnificent and John Seale cinematography is astounding and stunningly made . Anthony Mingella direction is accurately developed but there're some moments with slightly slow movement . The flick will appeal to emotion enthusiasts and romantic films fans . Rating: Very good . Above average , well worth watching.