The Cider House Rules
USA 1999
Reviewed by Peter Matthews
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Maine, 1943. Abandoned by his parents in infancy, Homer Wells grows up at St Clouds orphanage. Unofficially trained in obstetrics by resident doctor Wilbur Larch, Homer helps deliver unwanted babies, but refuses to assist at the illegal abortions Larch does at St Clouds.
One day, fighter pilot Wally Worthington and his pregnant girlfriend Candy Kendall show up for a termination. After the operation, Homer impulsively decides to leave with the couple. He is hired as an apple picker at the orchard run by Wally's mother in a nearby coastal town. Wally ships off to war, and Homer gets acquainted with the farm's migrant workers, including crew boss Mr Rose and his daughter Rose Rose. In Wally's absence, Homer and Candy fall in love. The governors of St Clouds want to replace Larch with a more orthodox physician. Hoping Homer will succeed him, Larch trumps up a phoney medical career for him, but Homer declines the post to stay with Candy.
Rose Rose confesses to Candy she's pregnant by her own father. Homer performs an abortion assisted by Mr Rose, who later kills himself. News arrives that Wally was shot down over Burma and is now paralysed. Candy elects to take care of him and ends the affair with Homer. Larch dies from an overdose of ether. Homer returns to St Clouds, where he is joyfully greeted by the orphans.
Review
If you never quite got over Annie and long for another batch of whimsically forlorn moppets, make haste to The Cider House Rules. It's true the orphans here don't sing or dance, but they compensate by occasioning more syrupy bathos than the screen has witnessed in decades. Just for starters, there's an irresistible tyke named Curly, who delivers the plaintive refrain "I'm the best!" whenever browsers drop round the asylum. Then there's Fuzzy, confined to an oxygen tent and gasping his last with a heart-tugging blatancy that would have embarrassed Little Nell. Clearly John Irving, who adapted the script from his mammoth 1985 novel, intends a cunning pastiche of Victorian sentimentality - he wants to kid the clichés and reactivate them at the same time. The shamelessness works to the extent that you can't help choking up a little even while you're giggling. But such are the twists of the author's baroque imagination that the orphanage doubles as an undercover abortion clinic - and what's bizarre about the movie is how it grafts greeting-card schmaltz on to a muckraking liberal agenda.
The fusion is broadly reminiscent of Dickens, and there are scattered hints that Irving fancies himself the heir apparent. Every night before bedtime, embattled pro-choicer Dr Wilbur Larch reads to the enraptured tots another instalment from David Copperfield. Pretty soon, Homer Wells, who decides against performing abortions himself, is caught up in his own thrilling Bildungsroman. Eventually required to perform an illegal abortion on an incest victim, our priggish hero learns abstract moral codes don't answer to the messiness of human reality.
At least I guess that's what the story is about, since once Homer enters the big wide world, the film becomes a masterpiece of dithering. Crammed with picaresque incident, quirky caricature, conceits and philosophising, the book is an unwieldy juggernaut that rolls along on pure pop energy. It must have been a bitch to condense, and Irving strains to locate a functional dramatic arc somewhere inside his loose, baggy monster. The screen version devolves into a parade of amorphous scenes that drift by without gathering emotional weight. Practically Teflon-coated, the movie raises a raft of momentous issues that refuse to stick. Not just abortion, but sexual abuse, race relations and women's independence get floated at sundry times, each theme limping off apologetically in turn. Even the titular rules are so hazily signposted their ultimate defiance holds scarcely any symbolic resonance.
There may be an additional reason for the curious lack of focus. As he proved in My Life as a Dog and What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Lasse Hallström has a wry, delicate touch - and that's exactly wrong for a hard-sell contraption like The Cider House Rules. The director's sensitivity here serves merely to undercut the book's aggressive showmanship, leaving little more than a texture of undifferentiated blandness. What's probably needed is the outré stylisation that Tony Richardson brought to Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire or the commercial zing of George Roy Hill's approach to The World According to Garp. As it stands, the unholy marriage of two disparate sensibilities ends up cancelling out the movie.
Credits
- Director
- Lasse Hallström
- Producer
- Richard N. Gladstein
- Screenplay
- John Irving
- Based on his own novel
- Director of Photography
- Oliver Stapleton
- Editor
- Lisa Zeno Churgin
- Production Designer
- David Gropman
- Music/Music Producer
- Rachel Portman
- ©Miramax Film Corp.
- Production Companies
- Miramax Films presents a FilmColony production
- Executive Producers
- Bob Weinstein
- Harvey Weinstein
- Bobby Cohen
- Meryl Poster
- Co-producers
- Alan C. Blomquist
- Leslie Holleran
- Associate Producers
- Lila Yacoub
- Michele Platt
- Production Supervisor
- Diana Zock
- Production Co-ordinator
- Marianne Crescenzi
- Unit Production Manager
- Barbara A. Hall
- Location Manager
- Charles Harrington
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Katia Milani
- Co-ordinator:
- Jasmine Kosovic
- Assistant Directors
- Stephen P. Dunn
- Tina Stauffer
- Paul Prenderville
- Script Supervisor
- Jane Goldsmith
- Casting
- Billy Hopkins
- Suzanne Smith
- Kerry Barden
- Location:
- Marty Cherrix
- NY Associates:
- Jennifer McNamara
- Mark Bennett
- LA Associate:
- Deborah Maxwell-Dion
- Camera Operator
- Chris Lombardi
- Special Visual Effects
- Eye Candy
- Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Al Magliochetti
- Special Effects Co-ordinator
- Ron Bolanowski
- Special Effects
- Robert Bolanowski
- Art Director
- Karen Schulz-Gropman
- Set Decorator
- Beth Rubino
- Scenic Artists
- Rand Angelicola
- Doug Cluff
- Dan Courchaine
- John Haven Story
- Sue Peterson
- Kevin Sciotto
- Costume Designers
- Renée Ehrlich Kalfus
- Associate:
- Liz Shelton
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Barbara Hause
- Key Make-up Artist
- Ellie Winslow
- Key Hairstylist
- Peg Schierholz
- Main/End Titles Design
- Nina Saxon/New Wave Entertainment
- Titles/Opticals
- Howard Anderson Co.
- Pianist
- John Lenehan
- Auricle
- Chris Cozens
- Conductor
- David Snell
- Orchestrations
- Jeff Atmajian
- Rachel Portman
- Miramax Music Executive
- Randy Spendlove
- Music Editor
- David Carbonara
- Engineer
- Chris Dibble
- Music Consultant
- Beth Rosenblatt
- Soundtrack
- "Ukulele Lady" by Gus Kahn, Richard A. Whiting, performed by Vaughn DeLeath; "Someone to Watch over Me" by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, performed by George Gershwin; "I Wonder" by Cecil Gant, Raymond Leveen, performed by Louis Armstrong; "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" by Irving Berlin, performed by Les Brown & His Orchestra; "King Kong" by Max Steiner, performed by The Moscow Symphony Orchestra; "I'll Be Seeing You" by Irving Kahal, Sammy Fain, performed by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra; "Bye Bye Blackbird" by Mort Dixon, Ray Henderson, performed by George Olsen & His Orchestra
- Production Sound Mixer
- Petur Hliddal
- Re-recording Mixers
- Steve Pederson
- Tom Perry
- Bob Chefalas
- Recordist
- Bob Olari
- Re-recording
- Foley:
- Peter Waggoner
- Frank Morrone
- Previews:
- Dom Tavella
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Maurice Schell
- Supervising Dialogue Editor
- Laura Civiello
- Dialogue Editors
- Bitty O'Sullivan-Smith
- Dan Korintus
- Magdaline Volaitis
- Sound Effects Editors
- Richie Cirincione
- Eytan Mirsky
- ADR
- Background Vocals:
- David Kramer's Looping Group
- Recordist:
- Alex Raspa
- Mixer:
- David Boulton
- Supervising Editor:
- Gina R. Alfano
- Editors:
- Harry Peck Bolles
- Marissa Littlefield
- Foley
- Artist:
- Brian Vancho
- Mixer:
- Joe Dohner
- Editors:
- Bruce Kitzmeyer
- Jacob Ribicoff
- Lou Bertini
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Charlie Croughwell
- Film Extracts
- King Kong (1933)
- Rebecca (1940)
- Cast
- Tobey Maguire
- Homer Wells
- Charlize Theron
- Candy Kendall
- Delroy Lindo
- Arthur Rose
- Paul Rudd
- Wally Worthington
- Michael Caine
- Dr Wilbur Larch
- Jane Alexander
- Nurse Edna
- Kathy Baker
- Nurse Angela
- Kieran Culkin
- Buster
- Kate Nelligan
- Olive Worthington
- Heavy D
- Peaches
- K. Todd Freeman
- Muddy
- Paz De La Huerta
- Mary Agnes
- Erykah Badu
- Rose Rose
- J.K. Simmons
- Ray Kendall
- Evan Dexter Parke
- Jack
- Jimmy Flynn
- Vernon
- Lonnie R. Farmer
- Hero
- Erik Per Sullivan
- Fuzzy
- Spencer Diamond
- Curly
- Sean Andrew
- Copperfield
- John Albano
- Steerforth
- Sky Mccole-Bartusiak
- Hazel
- Clare Daly
- Clara
- Colin Irving
- Major Winslow
- Annie Corley
- Carla
- Patrick Donnelly
- adopting father
- Edie Schechter
- adopting mother
- Kasey Berry
- 12 year old girl
- Mary Bogue
- Big Dot
- Victoria Stankiewicz
- Debra
- Christine Stevens
- Florence
- Earle C. Batchelder
- Doctor Holtz
- Norma Fine
- Mrs Goodhall
- Daniel Walsh
- adopted child
- Kathleen E. Broadhurst
- little girl
- John Irving
- station master
- Certificate
- tbc
- Distributor
- Buena Vista International (UK)
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- SDDS/Dolby digital
- Colour by
- DeLuxe
- Anamorphic [Hawk]