How others will see it. This star-powered love story was heavily promoted, and became a great critical and commercial success. The romance between icy-hot Kidman and her taciturn, determined boyfriend scored with female viewers, while men can cherish the war scenes, death scenes, eye-rolling comic relief with Philip Seymour Hoffman, and of course, the babes. The director tries hard to make Zellweger unattractive, but Kidman gets plenty of smokin' close ups, and Natalie Portman makes a heart-thumping guest appearance.
How I felt about it. Cold Mountain is all about platonic love and loyalty. It promotes the myth that the handsome, young, and overly serious man with little to say nonetheless harbors a wonderful, passionate soul. He can kill people, and watch others killed, but his soul isn't changed. He was, after all, sad-faced to begin with.
The beautiful death is also mythologized. People don't die screaming and streaming blood. Instead, they drop and stop breathing, but not until they've uttered something profound. Unless they're bad guys, of course, in which case they simply expire without further ado.
Cold Mountain does try, now and then, to humanize the villains. Old bully Teague (Ray Winstone) picks up the melody of a sad Southern standard, even though he plans to shoot the players, who are, after all, deserters. One of the Yankee soldiers at Portman's shack tries to comfort a sick baby, although two out of three are bad, all the way through.
Even the albino Home Guard killer has an excuse for his behavior. He has 'the confidence of youth,' even if he loses it a few seconds later. War is hell, deserters are cool, soldiers are bad, and birds trapped in church buildings are tame. The running time (which passes easily) is sufficient to add any number of cliches.
Chief among these is these is the woman in trouble. Jude Law saves a pregnant black girl, a widowed beauty with a baby, and defends Kidman and co. against the Home Guard. He misses the opportunity to rescue Sally (Kathy Baker), who instead is rescued by Zellweger, who also saves Kidman by restocking the homestead. As a tomboy, Zellweger can take care of herself, and others too. The goat lady also falls into this category, since she has no use for gender roles, or other trappings of society.
Only in wartime are the rules turned upside down. To desert your unit is a bad thing, unless you are fighting for rich men to keep their slaves. To punish deserters is a good thing, unless the deserters are good, in which case the law is bad. It's especially bad when the penalty, immediate death, seems worse than the offense, refusing to fight the enemy. It's the seeker of peace who is virtuous, even if he or she is obligated to kill to obtain it.