Review of The Cider House Rules (1999) by Darien S — 02 Feb 2013

"The Cider House Rules" storytelling is unpredictable, weaving from one scenario to the next all underscored by painfully obvious themes being constantly reiterated by the characters, especially from Michael Caine. Caine playing a truly insufferable character in that he is barely more than a symbol for stubborn resoluteness mixed with, of course, the wisdom gained from many years of experience. Tobey Maguire's character is the foil to Caine. He is naive and idealistic + opposes abortions. Unfortunately, his performance is static rendering him an archetype as well. Charlize Theron is the only character who exudes any sort of color but since she is forced to play out the inevitable second half to a love story, presumably, meant to teach Maguire a lesson, what does it matter? The film seems to try to make up for its sorely singularly purposed scenes by stuffing the film with characters who we are supposed to care about. They only serve as people for Maguire and Caine to talk to. They populate a world rather than influencing it.

The story doesn't really start for 40 minutes, where Maguire leaves the orphanage to be predictably disillusioned by the world. The first 40 minutes annoyingly reiterate the central conflict between Maguire and Caine over and over again. After an hour I realized I didn't need to see the rest of the film because I knew how it would play out. Or if I didn't know exactly, I didn't care to know. I predict that both of them will learn a bit from each other and that Maguire will stand on some hilltop pondering his youthful idealism. He will realize that the adult world is not what he thought it was. Barf.