★ 7 / 10
Beauty and the beast in Maine during WWII
Wuchak
Beauty and the beast in Maine during WWII On the surface “The Cider House Rules” (1999) is a quality period piece about life at an apple orchard and orphanage…
Beauty and the beast in Maine during WWII
On the surface “The Cider House Rules” (1999) is a quality period piece about life at an apple orchard and orphanage in Maine during WWII. Tobey Maguire stars as Homer Wells, who was raised at a remote orphanage and favored by caretaker Dr. Larch (Michael Caine), who imparts his vast medical knowledge & skills to the young man. At the age of 21 Homer decides to leave the orphanage with a couple that stopped by for an illegal abortion and ends up working at an apple orchard. Will he ever return?
It's the subtext where the film soars for those interested in ruminations on the complexities of morality and the place that outward or inward rules play.
Here's a taste: The movie contrasts outer rules with innate moral rules. The former can be broken as it suits the individual without any ill-effects, like the cider house rules in the film or stepping over the wall at Niagara Falls to get a better picture; innate moral rules, however, cannot be broken without severe consequences. To illustrate, the apple workers rightly mock the cider house rules made by people who don't know what it's like to live & work there, but one laborer breaks a universal spiritual law and so loses a close relationship and something worse, which conveys the idea that "the wages of sin is death."
Another example involves the rules of society demanding that a person have proper credentials in order to do the work Dr. Larch performs, and understandably so, but official credentials on a wall are irrelevant in regards to some people, like Homer, who's thoroughly expert at his craft, credentials or no credentials. And so Larch creates fake "proper" credentials to appease officials and patients.
Also, Wally & Candy (Paul Rudd & Charlize Theron) impulsively have an illegal abortion at the beginning of the movie but, by the end, it doesn't look like they're going to have very wild sex anymore (which is different than saying they won't have any sexual relations). They no doubt strongly regret deciding to break the rules and have an abortion, which was illegal at the time.
Obviously the movie's not far Left or far Right; it's somewhere in the middle in its realistic reflections on moral complexities and ambiguities. Both sides of the abortion debate, for instance, are presented. And, while it could be argued that the movie somewhat supports the pro-choice position, it doesn’t neglect to convey the conservative view and effectively shows how the debate is more complex than black or white. For example, if a man forces his self on a woman and she gets pregnant, the life within her is not there by her choice and therefore she arguably has the right to abort that life with the blood of the child being on the head of the impregnating male.
Elsewhere, Homer argues the conservative position, suggesting that people should be responsible enough to control themselves BEFORE a woman is impregnated and the ugly issue of abortion rears its head. Dr. Larch later remarks that he wishes the world were as idealistic as Homer sees it, but instead we’re stuck with an intricately phukked up planet where people make wrong choices all the time, which have a negative domino effect.
The film runs 2 hours, 6 minutes and was shot in Northampton, Massachusetts (orphanage); Dummerston, Vermont (orchard); Bernard, Corea and Sand Beach, Maine; as well as surrounding New England locations.
GRADE: B+
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★ 8 / 10
You princes of Maine
Prismark10
If you loved the book then you might be disappointed by the film adaptation of The Cider House Rules done by the author John Irving himself. Irving condenses…
If you loved the book then you might be disappointed by the film adaptation of The Cider House Rules done by the author John Irving himself.
Irving condenses the time-span and gets rid of many of the novel's subplots.
Dr Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine) runs an orphanage of abandoned children in an isolated New England town of St Cloud. He raises orphan Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire) as his medical apprentice after he was twice rejected by adoptive parents.
Under Larch's supervision he is in essence an unqualified doctor. Wells also reluctantly performs abortions. Larch carries out the abortions because the alternative for the women is much worse with dangerous backstreet abortions.
In 1943, Wally Worthington (Paul Rudd) and girlfriend Candy Kendall (Charlize Theron) come for an abortion, Wally is a soldier. Homer is unable to serve in the war because of his weak heart decided he wants to experience the world and leaves with them even though he is popular at the orphanage and Dr Larch treats him like a son.
Homer works at the Worthington's apple farm staying in their Cider House with the seasonal workers who are mainly black and illiterate. The workers never realised the rules posted in the Cider House as no one told them about it or explained it to them. They certainly could not read it.
Wally goes off to war and soon Candy and Homer begin a passionate affair. Back at the orphanage the staff hope he will return soon he regularly writes letters to them. Dr Larch sets up fake qualifications in order to pave way for Homer's return as the new doctor in the orphanage one day.
The film has a central theme about rules and how they are set and made to follow by those who do not realise that if the people who the rules are for can read them, understand them or know what purpose they are for. This applies to the Cider House rules which is presumably for the worker's safety and the rules against abortion which is more biblical.
Surrounding these issues we have the unwanted kids at the orphanage and the love given to them by Dr Larch and his staff who try to shield them away in this remote part of Maine from the big bad world as best they could. It helps that the kids are sweet, some get adopted, some stay until they grow old enough. A few die because their health is not strong enough.
The film goes to and fro from the orphanage to Homer as he enjoys his life at the orchard and his illicit affair with Candy. He also gets mixed up with the dramas of the workers as one of the women has an unwanted pregnancy. However things take a turn when Wally returns from action paralysed and Dr Larch's health worsens and Homer feels the need to return to the orphanage.
The film is a sweet tale with dark themes which can blind side you with the scenes involving the young kids watching King Kong. It is a film of Homer being protected from the world and discovering it himself the good and the bad.
Caine gives a strong performance as the kindly Dr Larch. An actor who was never good at accents but gives a good New England flavour here. He won his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Tobey Maguire is also excellent as the sweet natured, naive but principled Homer who has the urge to become adventurous.
The film has been much shorn from the novel but is also the sweeter for it.
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Superb movie.. Wowwww