Movies : January 2004

16 January 2004

Girl with a Pearl Earring

The arrival of new maid Griet (Scarlett Johansson) at the growing household of Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth) causes trouble from top to bottom when she’s harassed by the children, the object of suspicion to the wife (probably justified if the gossip in the market about her husband is to be believed) and mother in law (with her firm grip on the finances), and a provocative distraction in the master’s studio. With nearly every shot composed to evoke a painterly sensibility, and with a devotion to exploring the technology of the seventeenth century nearly as giddy as that in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World making up for the schematic supporting characters and straightforward plotting, a winning combination for those in an artistic mood.

101 minutes.

02 January 2004

Cold Mountain

She comes out of nowhere with a sixteen-point plan for returning the mountain estate to operation as a farm. She can break a rooster’s neck bare-handed, milk the cows before sun-up, and identify every crop, herb, and root growing in the area. She’s just as handy with a rifle as she is with a rake or plow and she has energy to spare. But, alas, the movie is not about Ruby (Renée Zellweger) who has arrived at the dilapidated house of Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman) up the slope from the small North Carolina hamlet of Cold Mountain. The pale daughter of a deceased minister (Donald Sutherland), Ada moons over Inman (Jude Law), a man who left to join the Confederate army soon after her arrival from Charleston. Even as Ruby gets things going again, life gets more difficult with each succeeding winter. As the fate of the CSA waxes and wanes, Inman defects and, with but a gift book and a tintype of Ada to comfort him, seeks to return to Cold Mountain. Well, at least the sunburn on Kidman’s cheeks from the snow is a nice touch, but Inman’s journey becomes a sequence of cameos which evokes more laughter than drama. Zellweger, playing broadly as she may be, is able to evoke more romantic sensibility than Law which is bad news given that the hurried love between Ada and Inman is the central thread of the plot. Undeniably pretty (Romanian locations) but lacking the punch of The English Patient. Won’t someone spare a tear for the ferry boat girl?

154 minutes.

Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 12-Sep-2004