Dir. Anthony Minghella
The movie starts as a movie about Inman (Jude Law) and Ada (Nicole Kidman) meeting and falling in love. They dont know each other that well, but the sparks are there, and everything is progressing nicely. Then the Civil War breaks out. Inman goes to fight for the South, and Ada tells him she will wait for him. Three years pass and the South has lost the war. The fighting is still going on, however. Men are deserting the South, since they can no longer hope to gain anything by continuing to fight and die. Ada writes to Inman who has been horribly wounded and tells him to leave the war and come home. At that point, the movie splits into two equally important stories. The first is Inman desperately trying to get home to the woman he loves. Hes got an amazingly hard time ahead of him, made worse by a gory wound in his neck. The second story is about Ada learning to be a useful person. Shes always been taken care of, so she has no survival skills at all. Once her father dies, and the money is gone, she has to adapt. She does this with the help of a woman who comes to work the farm, Rubi (Renee Zellweger.) Rudi doesnt like money, so she doesnt want paying, but she does know how to work and live, and is willing to teach Ada. Actually, its more like shes willing to force Ada to be a useful human. Its a joy to watch.
There is pretty much no happiness in this movie, only spurts of humor. If you were to go into the movie at random times, or fast forward to random spots, where you land would almost certainly be something awful. Theres death, torture, mutilation, evilness, rape, mud, blood, betrayal. Anything dark and nasty you can think of is in here. Even with all that, its a good and powerful movie. Heck, that probably makes it more true to the time.
I rate it: Full Price
Jude Law (Englishman) as Inman
Nicole Kidman (Australian) as Ada
Renee Zellweger (Texan) as Rubi
Ray Winstone (Englishman) as Teague