"Cider House Rules" is the best translation of a novel to film that I've ever seen. It must help that the novelist adapts his own work and writes the screenplay. This novel is a large, complex work with many characters and sub-plots. It would have been easy for the screenwriter to become bogged down in details and losing their way. Irving doesn't. He grabs at the major thematic thread and defines an engrossing tale of growing up and discovering one's self and one's calling. Set in rural Maine during World War II we follow Homer Wells, adolescent ward of an orphanage run by Dr. Larch. Visually it's a dark foreboding place, put emotionally full of love and happiness, excepting the sad women who trek to the orphanage to unburden themselves of their pregnancies, either by adoption or (illegal) abortion. Dr. Larch helps with both. Dr. Larch has also provided Homer with an education in practical obstetrics that would be the envy of any medical school. I don't want to go on further with the plot, it's a sweeping tale told with great acting, camera work, and scoring.
What worries me about this near perfect film is that my views are colored by having first read the novel. The characters and locations in the movie are exactly as I visualized them. It's spooky. And this provides me with information to fill in gaps about the character's motives and drives. How big a hindrance is not having read the book? I hope not much, because I feel this is one of the best movies of 1999.
What worries me about this near perfect film is that my views are colored by having first read the novel. The characters and locations in the movie are exactly as I visualized them. It's spooky. And this provides me with information to fill in gaps about the character's motives and drives. How big a hindrance is not having read the book? I hope not much, because I feel this is one of the best movies of 1999.