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Movies about orphanages run a huge risk of being overly sentimental
and being populated by too many forlorn waifs. However, this
adaptation of the John Irving novel is actually very good, due
to a strong central story and some excellent acting.
Tobey Maguire is Homer Wells, who abandoned as a baby, comes
to live at St Clouds orphanage which is run by Dr Wilbur Larch
(Michael Caine). After a couple of unsuccesful adoption attempts,
Homer becomes a permanent resident and protege of the doctor.
Homer begrudgingly learns about medicine from Dr Larch and makes
a good assistant even thoug he refuse to perform the illegal
abortions for which the doctor has beome notorious.
Homer is also the de facto big brother for the other kids,
which are made up of the usual orphanage suspects. There's Buster
- Homer's wannabe sidekick, there's Curly - who is desparate
for a family, there's Mary Agnes who has a crush on Homer, and
of course there's Fuzzy who is always sick and can't run around
and play with everyone else.
Eventually the call of the outside world becomes too string
for Homer. He sees his opportunity to leave when Candy Kendall
(Charlize Theron)and her boyfriend Wally (Paul Rudd) show up
to have an unwanted pregnancy terminated. Homer goes against
Dr Larch's wishes and leaves St Clouds with Candy and Wally
and ends up working at Wally's parents' apple farm.
There he learns some of the lessons of life. Generally he learns
that things in life are not always black and white, that people
are not wholly good or wholly evil, and that there are two sides
to every rule (hence the name of the story). It is learning
these things throug Homer's innocent eyes that make this a powerful
and interesting story.
What makes it a good movie are the excellent acting performances.
Caine is wonderful as the benevolent doctor who bends rules
to suit his needs and is certainly no saint. Maguire plays a
role that suits his range perfectly - a nice guy but a bit naive
(like his roles in Pleasantville and Ride With The Devil). Charlize
Theron lights up the screen with acting that should help mark
her as being more than just eye candy, while Paul Rudd's Wally
is spot on to be likeable enough to make the potential conflicts
later in the movie even more dramatic.
After several mediocre book adaptations this year, The Cider
House Rules is by far the best. Maybe this is because it was
the author John Irving who actually wrote the screenplay. From
this movie I can guess that book is very good and there were
clearly some parts of the book that could not be given much
attention though they were hinted at briefly (e.g. the role
of the rules on the cider house wall).
Beautiful, heartwarming, and thought provoking movie. Well
worth seeing.
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