| Overall Grade: |
B+ |
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| Story: |
B- |
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| Acting: |
B+ |
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| Direction: |
A |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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Beautiful, but flawed
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Jun 23, 2008
280
of
342 people found this review helpful
This is a beautifully filmed, stunningly beautiful and moving film, but if you read the book, you're likely to be disappointed with this simplistic tale. Anthony Mighella has taken Charles Frazier's complex Odyssey and reduced it to a simple love story, eliminating all of the interest and complexity the original held. It is now a straight-up love story with predictable good guys and bad guys and easy answers. Jude Law is excellent as the somewhat mysterious Inman - off to war for a cause he's not sure of. Nicole Kidman as Ada is unrealistic as the city-girl-on her-own-in-the-country Ada and it dimishes the point about the hardships of war as she gets even more gorgeous through the movie. Renee Zellweger delivers a standout (if a bit buffoonish at times) performance as Ruby, the hardscrabble girl who joins with Ada to save the farm. But it is the supporting cast that really makes this fillm. Eileen Atkins is another standout; Kathy Baker is subtle but moving; Phillip Seymour Hoffman's sleazy preacher is a blast; Giovani Ribisi is superb and Melora Walters is a scary Circe!
But Mighella has eliminated every single character of color that Frazier created, and with them went the complexity and interest of the film. It is now less of The Odyssey and more Gone With The Wind, although greatly superior to that. But it's GWTW without black folks (how does one do a movie about the Civil War in the South without mentioning slavery or race?!)
Still, its a good film if not the great film that should have been made from Frazier's outstanding book. |
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