Certain movies elicit specific memories for me.  Some are less well formed than others.  For example, I recall being a small child watching Silver Bullet (1985) and being terrified, but it was not in my own house.  I could not tell you where I was in that moment, but Corey Haim’s red jacket in that movie sticks out in my brain.  More distinct is seeing Ali (2001) on New Year’s Eve 2002 with my dad.  It seemed we were the only ones at the downtown St. Petersburg theater where we saw it for this purpose.  As for today’s film, Cold Mountain (2003), I viewed it with my best friend since high school and his then girlfriend, now wife.  As we emerged from the theater, she was mad at me for suggesting the movie.  Read on to find out why that might have been the case.

Cold Mountain begins in 1861 when North Carolina secedes from the Union at the start of the Civil War, though jumps back and forth to later in the conflict.  In the mountainous regions of the Tar Heel State is a small town in which lives a humble carpenter named W. P. Inman (Jude Law).  He falls for the relatively well-off preacher’s daughter, Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman).  The only real consummation of their feelings for each other is a kiss they share before Inman goes off to fight for the Confederacy.  He does so with the promise that they will be together one day.  Things were more romantic at this time.  Remarkably, he survives the next three years of fighting, and he exchanges letters with Ada that keep alive their hopes.  If you know your history, the war does not go well for the South.  By 1864, Inman is one of the few left-over veterans, and he and his ramshackle compatriots are on the outskirts of the besieged town of Petersburg.  By the way, if you want a really compelling moment in the Civil War, look up the history behind what happens next, called the Battle of the Crater.  Union engineers dig a mine under Rebel lines, fill it with explosives, and light the fuse.  Inman is close to the detonation and takes part in the deadly hand-to-hand combat that fellows.  He comes through that unscathed, but is wounded in a later skirmish.  It is while in the hospital that a letter from Ada convinces him to desert.  Part of this is motivated by the hopelessness of the Southern cause, but also by her desperate pleading for him to come home.  The reason for her desperation is that things are not going well for her back home.  Her father has died and she has no money with which to run the farm.  Neither is she much of a farmer.  At first, she survives on the kindness of Esco (James Gammon) and Sally Swanger (Kathy Baker), who live nearby.  However, this is not sustainable.  Hence, they end up sending Ruby Thewes (Renée Zellweger), who is the daughter of Inman’s compatriot Stobrod Thewes (Brendan Gleeson).  Ruby makes an impact immediately.  Seeing Ada struggling with a lone chicken on the front porch, she deftly grabs it, snaps it neck, and now they have dinner.  So, the farm is in good hands now, and Ada and Ruby become friends.  Meanwhile, Inman is having a tumultuous trek home.  He stops a preacher, Reverend Solomon Veasey (Philip Seymour Hoffman), from murdering his slave lover, who then decides to join Inman.  Unfortunately, they are taken in by a man going by Junior (Giovanni Ribisi), who turns them over to the Home Guard as deserters.  Their captors, though, are intercepted by Union cavalry.  Reverend Veasey is killed in the skirmish and Inman takes a bullet and is left behind.  He is nursed back to health by an elderly woman in the woods.  Yet, no sooner is he back on the road that he comes across a grieving woman, Sara (Natalie Portman), and her baby.  Once more he is forced to fight when another group of Union soldiers arrives to steal from her.  They also attempt to rape her, which is when Inman intervenes and, with Sara’s help, they take care of the interlopers.  Back in the title town, just as everything is beginning to come together for Ada, Ruby, and the Swangers (band name!), the Home Guard in this area starts to cause problems.  They are led by Captain Teague (Ray Winstone).  Him and his men are corrupt and have little compunction taking from the local farms.  They justify it by saying they are looking for deserters, and when they do not find any, they take what they determine to be excess goods for the “war effort.”  When they find deserters, as they do at the Swanger spread, they summarily execute them, murdering Esco in the process.  Ada and Ruby take in Sally, who has been rendered mute by the experience.  Their charity brings the attention of Captain Teague, who not only covets Ada’s land, but Ada herself.  Some help comes for them in the form of a few deserters, namely Georgia (Jack White), Pangle (Ethan Suplee), and Stobrod.  Ada and Ruby supply them in the woods, but it is not long before Captain Teague discovers them.  Captain Teague begins doing what he did to the Swanger boys, though Georgia gets away to warn Ada and Ruby.  Though Pangle dies, they are able to save Stobrod and tend to him at an abandoned Cherokee settlement.  It is here that Inman and Ada are finally reunited.  They spend one night together doing adult things, but the next morning Captain Teague finds them once more.  While Inman is able to take care of them, he is mortally wounded by Captain Teague.  Inman then dies in Ada’s arms.  We close with all the survivors gathered on Ada’s farm years later, and Ada having conceived a daughter from Inman.

If you have not guessed by now the reason for why my best friend’s wife did not enjoy the experience of watching Cold Mountain, allow me to define it: she wanted Inman to live.  I cannot say that I blame her.  One thing my synopsis did not do justice to is the dedication Ada and Inman have to one another.  Their early courtship is short but sweet.  Inman also resists temptation throughout his journey home, only to give in to it shortly after achieving the goal we all so earnestly rooted for him to obtain.  Speaking of temptation, I am not too thrilled with how Reverend Veasey is portrayed.  He is a protestant clergyman, and, unlike our Catholic priests, they are allowed to have relations with women.  Still, they are Christians, and, like all of us who follow that faith, should confine those relations to marriage.  Reverend Veasey does not seem concerned with such strictures, and part of how he is lured into Junior’s trap is by Junior offering one of the women in his household to him.  Understandably, a lot has been made about sex scandals in the Catholic Church and other Christian sects.  They have been extremely damaging.  They are also sins, and sin does not represent the sum of Christian teaching and thought.  Put differently, and I feel Reverend Veasey is emblematic of this, characters like this are put in to suggest that the problem is with the religion and not the person.  Reverend Veasey behaved this way because he is a sinful person, not because Christianity drives people to be promiscuous and attempt to rape others.  One might argue that the structure of Christianity is such that it puts too much pressure on people.  To that I would say that is not how God approaches us as individuals.  If somebody is struggling with desires that might lead them to such awful acts, I pray that they seek the help they need before they carry them out.

To echo my best friend’s wife’s sentiments, Cold Mountain is a tough movie to watch.  It is well made, acted, and pretty good with the history.  It is also tragic, so it is not one for the faint of heart.  As such, I recommend it mainly on the strength of its quality if nothing else.