TODAY'S NUGGET: Cold Mountain (2003) - 3 Obstacles in the Way of Romantic Longing

[Quick Summary: Inman, an injured Confederate soldier, makes his way home to his sweetheart Ada in Cold Mountain.]

This was a nice adaptation, well written, all about longing...but I got bored.  Here are my three reasons:

1) FEELINGS ALONE ARE NOT A FILM.  Inman meets Ada. He goes to war. She stays at Cold Mountain. They long for each other, which is very real.

But longing does not cause either to be pro-active or reactive (unlike guilt or shame) and thus have no repercussions or consequences for us to watch. 

I think this is better as a novel, and not a film.  Roger Ebert puts it better:

By the end of the film, you admire the artistry and the care, you know that the actors worked hard and are grateful for their labors, but you wonder who in God's name thought this was a promising scenario for a movie. It's not a story, it's an idea. Consider even the letters that Ada and Inman write to each other. You can have a perfectly good love story based on correspondence, but only, I think, if the letters arrive, are read and are replied to. There are times when we feel less like the audience than like the post office.

2) LACK OF SUSPENSE. Again, Roger Ebert puts it best:

Nothing takes the suspense out of Boy Meets Girl like your knowledge that Boy Has Already Met Star.

3) SECONDARY CHARACTERS STEAL THE SHOW. It's not good when I'm more interested in Veasey's antics than Inman's pining.

EXT. RIVER, EN ROUTE TO SALISBURY. DAY.

...On a parallel track across the river, RIDERS...impossible to say whether Home Guard or a Federal Raiding Party. Inman splashes out of the water, pushes Veasey down, silencing him. The riders pass. Veasey spots something shining in the grass, picks it up. IT'S A LONG TWO-HANDED SAW.

VEASEY (CONT'D): Hey! Look at this! (flexing it) This is a good saw.

INMAN (getting up): It's not yours. You take it, you make us another enemy. You're a Christian - don't you know your commandments?

VEASEY: You'll find the good Lord very flexible on the subject of property. We could do a lot with this saw...

Inman is vexed, walks away. Veasey follows, experimenting with the saw's music when flexed. Inman stalks on.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED:  I think the key was #2.  If I am expecting a roller coaster and get flat plains, what am I rooting for?

Cold Mountain (2003)(Feb. 2002 draft)
by Anthony Minghella
Based on the novel by Charles Frazier