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Compiled by: Jack Foley
US critics have warmed to Cold Mountain since it opened over
the holiday period, furthering its chances of Oscar success.
The film, which has already been nominated for the most amount
of Golden Globes next
year, was described by Time Magazine as ‘the year's most
rapturous love story’.
And while most critics could find some fault with elements of
the movie, the majority ended up finding something positive to
write.
Hence, the Boston Globe noted that ‘three quarters
of Cold Mountain consist of some of the most masterful and absorbing
film-making of the year’.
While USA Today wrote that ‘watching this movie,
it seems to be the next level down from great -- maybe too episodic.
But it burns in the memory weeks after you see it’.
CNN applauded director, Anthony Minghella, for ‘once
again… achieving the miracle of transforming a difficult
book, with an inner narrative, into a deeply satisfying film’.
While the Los Angeles Times wrote: "An unabashed
romantic, Minghella takes to Ada and Inman's love story with appreciable
feeling, but the irony of Cold Mountain is that it's the director's
grasp of violent action that proves his greatest cinematic gift."
Even more glowing was Newsday, which wrote ‘that
the film Cold Mountain is so much better than the best-selling
Charles Frazier novel makes it quite the rare thing - only The
Godfather comes immediately to mind as an example of a major movie
that so surpasses its source material’.
And the New York Times opined that ‘as they might
have said in the old days, this sweeping, historical romance is
one heck of a classy picture, which is both its great virtue and
its limitation’.
Still positive, was Entertainment Weekly, which referred
to it as ‘a willed exercise in mythmaking’, while the
Houston Chronicle described it as ‘a beautiful tale, tragic
and mournful’.
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Of those that found fault, the Globe & Mail stated
that ‘the dazzle doesn't add up to the sustained act of brilliance
I'd been expecting. For all its many strengths, the picture ultimately
feels like a mild -- and I emphasize mild – disappointment’.
While the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that ‘at
154 minutes, Cold Mountain is long and seems long, at times inspired,
at times merely dutiful. But in most of the important ways, it
succeeds’.
Of the negatives, the New York Daily News opined that
‘there is something distancing about the film, and I don’t
refer to the Romanian mountains standing for North Carolina’s
Blue Ridge’.
And the Chicago Tribune noted that ‘in terms of pedigree
and sheer, lush filmmaking, the movie has class written all over
it. And that's part of the problem’.
While the Washington Post noted that while ‘it's
enough of a spectacle to enjoy... It's too bad the stars are little
more than serviceable and give the movie title an irony it could
certainly do without’.
But the word was generally very strong, with Rolling Stone
noting that it is ‘one stunner of a movie’, and the
Philadelphia Inquirer writing that ‘Cold Mountain
is the equivalent of comfort food: old-fashioned, earthy, satisfying’.
Variety felt that it was ‘handsomely made and vividly
acted’, while the New York Post wrote that it is ‘an
exquisitely crafted Civil War epic that combines the epic romantic
sweep of Gone With the Wind with a more intimate voice that speaks
eloquently to the war-weary nation of today’.
But the final word goes to the New York Observer, which
concluded that it ‘blends every aspect of film-making - sets,
costumes, camerawork, acting, lighting, writing, editing and technology
- to tell mythic stories of love, death, courage, honor, loss
and survival on the battlefield and on the home front in the 1860's’.
Cold Mountain also got off to a good start at the US Xmas box
office, charting at number three, with $14.5 million for the weekend,
and $19 million for the four days. It cost $80 million to make.
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