The Cider House Rules (Tobey Maguire, Michael Caine) 1/2
There's nothing in The Cider House Rules you haven't seen before. It's a drama that wants so desparately to be taken seriously, it tends to forget the sheer breadth of familiar territory it spans, making the experience of watching it more of a guessing game as to what might happen next -- and then ticking each completed scene off the mental checklist. It's a by-the-numbers affair that reaped enormously critical praise on its release but falters in a number of areas, most notably in its heroic depiction of morally questionable characters.
Michael Caine plays Dr. Wilbur Larch, a kindly man who has set up an orphanage and abortion clinic in the backwoods of New England during the Second World War. A certified physician, Larch helps out wayward women who otherwise might resort to more extreme and dangerous measures to avoid having their babies. The orphanage is, of course, comprised of the children Larch has managed to convince the mothers to hand over to him. All of them want desparately to be adopted into a loving home. One little boy from Malcolm in the Middle even has a terrible sickness. Insert tsk-ing sound here.
Over the years, Wilbur has groomed young Homer (Tobey Maguire) to be his successor, until one day the young Candy (Charlize Theron) visits the orphanage. Incidentally, these are the characters' names, I am not making them up. Anyhoo, Homer is torn between his sheltered life and the promise of discovering what else is out there. After all -- and how could I forget to mention this? -- Homer has a problem with his heart. Medically speaking, of course.
So, Homer embarks with Candy and her boyfriend (Paul Rudd) to see the world. The lad mentions in passing he has never seen the ocean, so there is a scene where he finally gets to see the ocean, set to music (*cough* every road movie every made *cough*). There is a scene where the boyfriend must "ship out" and fight in the war so, of course, tragedy must strategically befall him while he is away because Homer is discovering he loves Candy (*cough* Coming Home *cough*). There is also a scene where a co-worker from the apple orchard where he works (hence the title) ends up "needing" an abortion and, fortunately, his doctor's kit has been shipped to him by Wilbur in case of an emergency related to pregnancy. Meanwhile, Wilbur is back at the orphanage, getting it on with his nurses who obey and worship him unfalteringly while he sucks up ether from his bed in between performing abortions.
Is this an over-simplification of the film's plot? Perhaps. Certainly, life is never as simple as black and white, but The Cider House Rules opts instead to smear a lot of shades of heavy topics at once and it is never clear if director Lasse Hallström is even trying to portray any side of the movie's issues at all, even something as neutral as a gray stance. With abortion, incest, adultery, drug abuse and violence all inherent in the film, it casts out a large net of ethics through a wide range of subplots and ultimately never succeeds in any single depiction. Performance-wise, Maguire and Caine are at the top of their game here, but Theron, Rudd and Delroy Lindo as the amoral father are simply going through the motions. The kids at the orphanage, though stuffed with trite dialogue, may be the best actors in the movie. It's rather appropriate, given that much of the adult material is approached in a definitively child-like manner.
