First of all, congratulations to the IMDb commenter who acted as camera assistant to Lasse Halstrom on this film. The Cider House Rules is gorgeous to look at, providing a real feel for the seasons and the beauty of Maine; its gorgeous close-ups reveal the heart of the characters.
The Cider House Rules is simple and subtle. It doesn't provide a treatise on abortion, its rights and wrongs, nor does it actually SHOW you the gory details. Instead, you see the faces of the doctors and patients reacting to the process, like Mr. Rose's horrified face as he watches his daughter put through it. You feel how grotesque abortion can be, even for a doctor like Larch in favor of it, his anger and addiction to ether revealing his own repulsion for the procedure. Irving's characters and scenes show rather than tell, which I suppose is the secret of the miracle of moving from printed page to silver screen. I am personally and politically pro-choice, but at the same time I'm against the death penalty. One runs into a lot of conflict for holding these two seemingly contradictory positions: let the guilty felon live for he is a human being, but the innocent "child" may be sacrificed. This film brought up that moral conflict in me once more.
However, the Cider House Rules is not meant to be so controversial. It is meant to stir emotions and compassion, which it does incredibly well. Tobey Maguire, Michael Caine, Delroy Lindo, and Erykah Badu all do fantastic work with their characters, miraculously bringing out the humanity of people who perform acts that many of us would find morally corrupt, incest, adultery, abortion, yet they force our compassion instead of our criticism.
I don't think the Cider House Rules will receive any big award in the end except perhaps Best Adapted Screenplay, which it certainly merits. However, I can't remember another film this year besides The Dreamlife of Angels that said so much in so few words. See it now.
The Cider House Rules is simple and subtle. It doesn't provide a treatise on abortion, its rights and wrongs, nor does it actually SHOW you the gory details. Instead, you see the faces of the doctors and patients reacting to the process, like Mr. Rose's horrified face as he watches his daughter put through it. You feel how grotesque abortion can be, even for a doctor like Larch in favor of it, his anger and addiction to ether revealing his own repulsion for the procedure. Irving's characters and scenes show rather than tell, which I suppose is the secret of the miracle of moving from printed page to silver screen. I am personally and politically pro-choice, but at the same time I'm against the death penalty. One runs into a lot of conflict for holding these two seemingly contradictory positions: let the guilty felon live for he is a human being, but the innocent "child" may be sacrificed. This film brought up that moral conflict in me once more.
However, the Cider House Rules is not meant to be so controversial. It is meant to stir emotions and compassion, which it does incredibly well. Tobey Maguire, Michael Caine, Delroy Lindo, and Erykah Badu all do fantastic work with their characters, miraculously bringing out the humanity of people who perform acts that many of us would find morally corrupt, incest, adultery, abortion, yet they force our compassion instead of our criticism.
I don't think the Cider House Rules will receive any big award in the end except perhaps Best Adapted Screenplay, which it certainly merits. However, I can't remember another film this year besides The Dreamlife of Angels that said so much in so few words. See it now.