The Cider House Rules (Miramax Collector's Series)

The Cider House Rules (Miramax Collector's Series)

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DVD Reviews of The Cider House Rules (Miramax Collector's Series)

DVD Review: a film of strengths and weaknesses
Summary: 3 Stars

"The Cider House Rules" runs the risk and falls into the trap. The first section, set in a Maine orphanage in 1943, fascinates us not merely with the sheer novelty of the setting but with the central figure of the piece, the doctor and caregiver who becomes the focus of our attention. Brilliantly portrayed by Michael Caine, Dr. Larch is a man who provides love to a collection of children otherwise ignored and abandoned by an uncaring world. The most controversial aspect of the character involves the fact that Dr. Larch also provides abortions for women who want them at a time when the operation was still illegal and the only other alternative for many of these women was to suffer at the hands of inept practitioners of the operation. "The Cider House Rules" is certainly to be commended for tackling a subject that is virtually taboo in commercial moviemaking - albeit, it must be stated for those who do not adhere to abortion advocacy that the slant here is decidedly pro-choice despite the script's making a few gestures to the anti-abortion viewpoint early on in the film.

The center of the film is occupied by a young man named Homer Wells, a twice-rejected orphan who grows up at the orphanage almost as Dr. Larch's medical protégée and whom Dr. Larch appears to be grooming to take over his practice from him in the future. The pseudo father-son relationships between Dr. Larch and Homer and between Homer and the boys who are in his charge are conveyed with genuine emotional power and heartwarming believability. As prospective parents visit the facility, we feel deeply the desperation these children have to be adopted and to find a place where they will fit in. Conversely, we empathize keenly with the sense of sadness and personal inadequacy that inevitably accompanies each of their many rejections. Even more fascinating is the social context in which the drama plays itself out. Because of his willingness to perform the abortions, Dr. Larch's position at the orphanage has come under attack from the board of trustees that runs the institution. Thus, we are all primed for a gripping showdown between these two opposing forces and wonder how Homer will fit into the proceedings.

Unfortunately, the author John Irving pulls the rug out from under us as he decides to take his story off into an almost entirely different direction. Feeling that he is missing out on a whole vast world waiting for him beyond the confines of this remote, isolated community, Homer, rather understandably for a sheltered young man, decides to abruptly leave the orphanage and to start life anew as an apple picker when he meets a soldier whose beautiful wife has come to the doctor for an abortion and whose family is in the cider making business. Although Homer's sudden farewell results in a scene of great emotional power, as a whole torrent of conflicting emotions come flooding out of both Homer and the people he is leaving behind, the fact is that we sorely miss the orphanage once we are ripped away from it. Somehow, the scenes on the farm - and they constitute well more than half of the film's running time - never match in intensity and interest those that have come before. In fact, the least original and impressive aspect of the film is the predictable and conventional adulterous affair that Homer and the soldier's wife, Candy (Charlize Theron), indulge in when her fighter-bomber husband returns to the war. Has there ever in the movies been a case of a beautiful young wife who did not cheat on her husband the minute he went on a mission overseas? The theme of the story - as represented by the posted list of "cider house rules" that we are told by one of the characters are not too be followed because whoever wrote them didn't live in the cider house - seems to be that rules are made to be broken, although in some cases - such as incest - the violation goes so far over the edge that such an act will always result in disastrous consequences for the perpetrator. Throughout the film, the characters always seem to be abandoning the rules set out for them by society. Dr. Lance performs illegal operations, creates a phony resume and a set of counterfeit documents in an attempt to get the board to hire Homer as his assistant, and even deceives Homer into believing he suffers from a serious heart ailment to keep him out of the service. Homer himself seems to suffer little guilt as he pursues a love affair with the wife of the man who has kindly entrusted him with a job when he most needs it.

More interesting than this theme, however, is the more subtle one of parents - whether real or ersatz - learning to let go of the child in whom one has invested all one's dreams and hopes for the future. The genuine heartbreak Dr. Lance suffers as Homer leaves to find a new place in the world becomes almost palpable as written on Caine's beautifully expressive, craggy face. Unfortunately, this aspect of the film is, understandably I suppose, played out almost entirely in scenes in which letters are exchanged back and forth between the two principals and in which their feelings are conveyed in the rather undramatic form of voice-over narration. In fact, after Homer leaves, Dr. Lance becomes virtually a minor character in the story and, with his withdrawal from the scene of action, much of the emotional energy of the earlier portions drains out of the film.

Director Lasse Hallstrom deserves high praise for the fine performances he has drawn from a uniformly excellent cast. As Homer, Tobey Maguire brings a quiet, understated niceness to the pivotal role. Particularly noteworthy are the young boys who fill the early sections of the film with so much infectious life and emotion. They are cute without being adorable, touching without being cloying. Hallstrom has also captured the alternately lush, alternately bleak Maine landscape to striking effect.

Description of The Cider House Rules (Miramax Collector's Series)

Central to the story (set during World War II) is Homer (Tobey Maguire), a young man raised in a Maine orphanage, where the ether-sniffing Dr. Larch (Michael Caine) rules with benevolent grace while performing safe but illegal abortions. To expand his horizons, Homer follows a young couple (Charlize Theron, Paul Rudd) to do fieldwork on an apple farm, where his innocent eyes are opened to the good and evil of the world--and to the realization that not all rules are steadfast in all situations. By the time Homer returns to the orphanage, The Cider House Rules--which features one of Caine's finest performances--is memorable more for its many charming and insightful moments than for any lasting dramatic impact. Is Homer fated to come full circle in his kindhearted journey? It's left to the viewer to decide. --Jeff Shannon