The cider house rules
It premiered in 1996 at Seattle Repertory Theatre (with subsequent productions at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and at The Atlantic in New York). The Cider House Ruleswas the first full-length novel adapted in the Book-It Style™. Larch, who delivers not only babies but their mothers, too. This is the story of orphan Homer Wells’ life in a Maine orphanage and his education under the tutelage of Dr. But the effect is evasive, unwholesome and deeply creepy.Adapted by Peter Parnell | Directed by Jane Jones (based on the original direction by Tom Hulce & Jane Jones) Maybe Hallström and Irving were striving for eccentric humanist optimism. In the end, all these dark themes are disposed of in favour of a weird, feelgood atmosphere. In the end, some tough experiences in the real world turn his opinions around, but this conversion is glib and shallow, with nothing at stake emotionally or dramatically. Or does it? Homer starts the film sternly pro-life and bitterly opposes the abortions Dr Larch carries out. Or does it? Homer frowningly discovers a terrible case of this, but, in the end, the perpetrator's contrite attitude allows the film smoothly to confer on him a tragic, almost noble status. Otherwise, the workers are utterly deferential to their employers and their employers' friends, with Mr Rose's daughter exchanging sisterly hugs with Candy and accepting from her charitable gifts of clothing.
Buy a discounted Paperback of The Cider House Rules online from Australias. But that's as far as the racial analysis of capital and labour goes. Booktopia has The Cider House Rules, Ballantine Readers Circle by John Irving. Is the infantilising effect of that deliberate? Difficult to tell.Īnyway, the workers are furious about the patronising rules posted up for their behaviour by the white boss and burn them (although the one about not using cider press machinery while drunk sounded pretty reasonable to me). They're all billeted in a dormitory called the Cider House: Homer and the blacks sweetly sleep in rows of beds just like the orphanage kids. When Homer goes to stay at the apple-picking farm, he is the only white worker among the blacks, thus "making history" as the head worker Mr Rose (Delroy Lindo) coyly observes, though Homer has a special relationship with the white folks in the big house that his co-workers do not enjoy. Or does it? Picking apples in Maine is clearly intended to have softer connotations than, say, picking cotton in Virginia.
The cider house rules movie#
This movie combines brazenly manipulative sentimentality - picturesque sick kiddies at the orphanage - with the bizarre deployment of difficult, adult issues. Michael Caine has presence and style, but his American accent sounds like he's doing an impression of Loyd Grossman's Canadian mother-in-law. Maguire is cute, as is Ms Theron, who, at one stage, is shown reclining languorously unclothed so as to make clear that, to paraphrase Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, she does her own ass-work. Here he falls in love with Candy (Charlize Theron) while her boyfriend Wally (Paul Rudd) is away at war. Its story follows Homer Wells, who lives in a World War IIera Maine orphanage run by a doctor who trained him, and his journey after leaving the orphanage. It was written by John Irving and is based on his 1985 novel of the same name. Yearning to get out into the wide world, Homer gets a job on a farm picking apples and pressing them for cider. The Cider House Rules is a 1999 American drama film directed by Lasse Hallström and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures. Set during the second world war, the film tells of boyish Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire), who has been brought up in a Maine orphanage by kindly but stern Dr Larch (Michael Caine), who presides over a set-up which is also a lying-in hospital and abortion venue. A good two hours consisting, almost literally, of nonsense - gurning, emoting, self-regarding gibberish. It is directed by Lasse Hallström, with a screenplay by John Irving, taken from his own bestseller, and has picked up a raft of Oscar nominations, including one for the excellent, much-patronised and underrated Michael Caine.īut, revisiting it now, five months after its UK premiere at the London Film Festival, it just seems odder than ever, jam-packed with incoherent moral positions, bulging with pseudo-issues, and all rendered entirely inarticulate by its own choked-up tearfulness. The Cider House Rules is a very odd, glutinous sentimental drama, like an episode of The Waltons about incest, race and abortion.