Cold Mountain
2003 · Directed by Anthony Minghella
Original language: English
- war
- history
- adventure
- romance
The story
In this classic story of love and devotion set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, a wounded Confederate soldier named W.P. Inman deserts his unit and travels across the South, aiming to return to his young wife, Ada, who he left behind to tend their farm. As Inman makes his perilous journey home, Ada struggles to keep their home intact with the assistance of Ruby, a mysterious drifter sent to help her by a kindly neighbor.
What it’s like
Sweeping, saturated landscapes of mud, rain-swollen rivers and deep green forest, shot with a painterly eye that lingers on wind through tall grass and the warm amber of firelight in cramped cabins. Its sound is an aching folk-tinged score threaded with Appalachian ballads, with long stretches of wind and birdsong between them. The mood is somber and wistful, a slow-burning romance steeped in loss, where a wartime journey and a lonely farm wait in parallel and stay emotionally intimate even as the scale widens. Pacing is unhurried and episodic, often drifting for long passages before a sudden jolt. Violence is intermittent but harsh: battle scenes with bloody, chaotic gunfire, a graphic shooting, and a brief but disturbing sexual assault attempt, with a few deaths landing hard. It is not gory for its own sake, but it is not gentle. Suited to a rainy weekend, or anyone who wants a melancholy, grown-up love story set against the American Civil War, and who can handle sustained grief and some brutality.
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