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The Cider
House
Having repeatedly been disappointed with the various movie versions of his novels, John Irving decided that the only way to make sure that the script was any good was to write it himself. So he took the two main episodes from his mammoth "The Cider House Rules" and managed to come up with a half-way decent movie. This film comes in two parts. The first is takes place at the St. Cloud's Orphanage in Maine, where Dr. Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine with an awful accent) recounts the story of Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire), who had come there as a baby and after being adopted twice and been sent back, became the personal favorite and later assistant to the good doctor. The depiction of life in the orphanage is the best part of the film. The kids who play the orphans (Kieran Culkin, Spencer Diamond, Erik Sullivan, Sean Andrew and John Albano) all have bright futures ahead of them, and they and the nurses (Jane Alexander and Kathy Baker) bring a true sense of family to the place.
Dr. Larch has trained Homer to be a pediatrician and abortionist, something Homer doesn't really want to do. He wants to see the world, but those at St. Clouds do everything in their power to keep him there. That is until... A soldier named Wally Worthington (Paul Rudd) brings a very pregnant Candy Kendall (Charlize Theron) to St. Clouds to have it ended, and Homer asks the couple if he could go along with them. Thus, he makes his escape. Wally gives Homer a job picking apples for the family cider business, and he not only gets himself a new family, of sorts, consisting of migrant workers (Delroy Lindo, K. Todd Freeman, Heavy D and Erykah Badu) who come to the farm for the harvest and falls in love with Candy as Wally goes off to war. The problem with the second half of the film is that it isn't as well constructed as the first, and while what happens is more dramatic than the first half, it just doesn't fly as high. Regardless, it's still very good. Caine, Theron and Lindo give excellent performances as they always do, and Badu is a find as Lindo's daughter. But it's Maguire's film and he makes the most of it. It's definitely something that should be seen. Eric Lurio
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Richard E. Schiff
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