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I hadn't especially wanted to see The Cider House Rules. This was due to generally mediocre buzz, but when the Academy honored it with a nomination for Best Picture, Cider House became required viewing.
Cider House is enjoyable and held my interest, but it does help me appreciate how effective Miramax is in promoting their wares for Oscar consideration! The film is an enjoyable key lime pie after the main course—tasty, light fluff; not too filling. No way was it one of the top five movies of 1999!
It only blatantly reveals Miramax's marketing strategy, and how the studio chooses to put its muscle behind its safer, more lightweight fare instead of risking a possible rejection of the more daring and substantive The Talented Mr. Ripley.
One of the serious issues in Cider House, dealt with in a non-preachy way, is abortion. But this is just a subplot. Cider House also touches on sexual abuse, incest, and murder—but you hardly realize it, since these issues are dealt with so superficially.
A few hours after seeing Cider House, I wasn't sure what was supposed to create lasting impressions. Since the tame Cider House stops short of making any real insightful social statements, I had the feeling the script was written among a variety of conflicting elements (though John Irving wrote the script himself).
This feeling was confirmed when I read an interview with Irving, in which the novelist described the people he had to deal with when he was writing his screenplay:
People [were] complaining about this or that scene for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with the quality or integrity of the overall story—lawyers, secretaries, business executives, bankers, actors' agents, assistants to assistants, and just plain jerks (in addition to the director and the producer).
In short, every script, before it's produced, has suffered the comments of a veritable committee!
To Cider House's credit, the scenery is pretty. I'd love to visit Maine to see the woods and hills with their red and orange fall foliage, to see the rugged coastline, and to enjoy fresh lobster. Congratulations to the cinematographer. The state of Maine should give him a commission on the additional tourist trade the film will generate.
Cider House has mastered the "feel good" formula of Hollywood fare. There are the manufactured, stilted phrases designed for audience reaction and Academy voters alike, and the tearjerker scenes with their painful goodbyes to cute orphan kids.
Michael Caine puts in an admirable performance as the loving doctor of the orphanage. Tobey Maguire is a sweet kid. Charlize Theron is lovable and likable in her role, but the plot is inevitably predictable.
Most people will enjoy The Cider House Rules. Just don't expect a huge amount of depth. It's simply not there. Welcome to "independent"-thinking Miramax (a/k/a. Hollywood Lite).
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