all i had to do was watch five minutes of the 2003 academy awards to see how huge this movie was in hollywood. i actually didn’t hear very much about it, except through a couple of friends who really enjoyed the film. when i finally saw it for myself, i was largely satisfied with the hype.

cold mountain is a tale of two almost-strangers who fall in love and promise to find each other after the war. inman was the most interesting character for me. you follow his journey from the civil war as he tries desperately to return to his home of cold mountain and to his love, ada monroe. i thought law did a good job covering up his accent, as he usually does in his films; i didn’t even know he was british until i read an article about his role in the talented mr. ripley. nicole kidman, on the other hand, didn’t seem to give the southern drawl her best effort. she does a decent job hiding her australian accent in most films, but i couldn’t tell if she was southern, australian, british, or just plain retarded in this movie. and am i the only one tho thinks her overly botox-injected face looks quite frightening now? her smile looks more like a painful grimace.

renée zellweger turns in an excellent performance as ruby, but not as excellent as some people have made it out to be. she still has the “i sucked a lemon” face throughout the whole film. it was cool that some additional roles were played by other well known and familiar actors. charlie hunnam as an albino gymnast was a bit out of place, though. and — i’ll admit it — he kind of freaked me out.

i really liked the story behind cold mountain. although inman and ada get to do the horizontal limbo in a rather steamy sex scene (hey, even i was aroused), i didn’t feel a connection between the two characters. i felt that they just acted as the other’s reason to return home form the war, to persevere through the social chaos, to pursue the possibility of love in a time of such hate and violence. but that could simply be my minor in english talking — it doesn’t amount for much.