The Cider House Rules Struggles To Find Voice

The Cider House Rules is plagued with uncertainties. In the mix of an old-fashioned love story coming of age formula with elements of dark, literary moral ambiguity, the would-be Oscar contender indulges in some of the most common clich�s that Hollywood films have to offer.

It can't seem to decide where it wants to go - into the realm of edgy and difficult artistic commentary or into the more standard path of a heartwarming human story. In the end, its own indecision undermines its power. The viewer can't decide whether to be taken in by the lush romanticism of its acting and cinematography or to pay attention to the complexities of its philosophical undertones, which leave us instinctively distrustful of happy endings and moral surety.

The first of the movie's three stages begins in an orphanage in New England, a stunningly evocative setting, with the lushness of the pine trees and natural setting juxtaposed with the moody interior of the old house. The cinematography gives a somber feel to this part of the film even as the action is tender and domestic, focusing on the relationship of one of the orphans, Homer (Tobey McGuire), with the doctor and head of the orphanage, Dr. Larch (Michael Caine). Homer emerges as caring, empathic and keenly aware, but he is troubled by wishes that the cloistered life in the orphanage cannot satisfy, and he yearns to discover the world outside. McGuire's performance throughout both transcends and struggles under the formula inherent in this clich�, sometimes exploring the complexities of Homer's development, sometimes coasting on the tired "good-guy-coming-of-age" stereotype.

The ambiguities - both personal and moral - of this fragile paradise simply can't last. Fate arrives in the person of Wally (Paul Rudd) and his girlfriend Candy (Charlize Theron). Under the nose of his father figure and surrogate family, Homer sets off for his promised adventure.

His encounter with the magical outside takes him to an apple farm, where he throws himself into picking apples in the orchards and his newfound friendship with the young couple. Director Lasse Hallstr�m imbues Homer's job with pastoral glamour, letting the camera linger on the sunlit orchards, the bales of apples, and the enthusiasm and energy of Homer and the minority migrant workers who are his colleagues. Here he makes the Cider House his home, meets and befriends the poor migrant workers, and discovers the moral difficulties that build to become to the story's center. But these discoveries are uneven and the film portrays them with different degrees of artistic success.

The first part of his life at the orchard resembles his warm, happy life at the orphanage, except that in the orchard, his happiness appears complete. Ironically, the element which is ultimately to shatter this is his romance with Candy. Their friendship and growing attraction is portrayed with sensitivity and sweetness, as they are subtly drawn closer to each other until their final union in the woods. Theron counters McGuire's sometimes overly sweet performance with a playful soulfulness that makes the romance believable.

At the end of the season, the Cider House, once a bustling communal center, is transformed into Homer and Candy's private world as their relationship deepens. Director of photography Oliver Stapleton's camera work gives their life in the house the spaciousness and depth of a dream. But when spring comes, the migrant workers - and life's harsh realities - return with vengeance. With the arrival of his friends, and their own lives and troubles, Homer's former life as a doctor comes back to him, and with it the moral complexities of his character develop. Portraying Homer's response to the painful problems of a girl migrant worker and her father, the film achieves its greatest moral depth, but also reveals its inability to sustain that depth and truly remove itself from the standard Hollywood formula. The situation is resolved too neatly, and at the height of the drama, McGuire's effort as an actor seems to give way as he fades into bland piety.

When the movie's end finds Homer back in the orphanage, the film is in danger of reverting to clich�. Homer's character regains some of his former depth, and the familiar setting has a new, more grand resonance, as if it too has been shaped by Homer's experiences. Though this might seem too easy the film barely manages to avoid the trap of a too-easy ending. The final sequence is careful and tasteful, but finally not entirely satisfying.

The formal quality of the three-part film does have its own power, though, and the last section does its job in not upsetting this balance - it is successful more by what it does not do than what it does. Ultimately the formal setting of the film gives it what power it has, the three settings forming discrete segments, like the panels of a triptych, of which the middle one, for all its flaws, is by far the most radiant. And through this radiance and its slightly understated moral quests, the film succeeds where many of the same formula fail. - Paul Mason