In this review of the film Cold Mountain you will learn for the first time the TRUE story behind the story. What you won’t get here, however, is an even-handed, objective evaluation of the movie. For that, you’ll need to consult some of the other fine reviews already provided by the talented corps of Epinions writers. I lost my objectivity about this film well over a year before it was released! I’ll explain later.

Let’s begin with a quick recap of the fictionalized version of the story that you have seen or will see in the film Cold Mountain. Cold Mountain is the chilling story of a southerner named Inman (Jude Law), who fights bravely at the Battle of Petersburg in Virginia, later risks his life to clear snipers from a position that will endanger his comrades, gets wounded trying to drag a comrade to safety, and then deserts from the hospital where he is recovering from his wounds. He begins an odyssey covering hundreds of miles through the war-torn south, desperately hoping to return to his beloved, Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman), in the small North Carolina village of Cold Mountain. Along the way, he must evade the Home Guard (vigilantes that hunt down deserters) as well as Union soldiers. He also encounters a variety of ordinary folks who should be (in modern parlance) non-combatants, but are damaged and pained by the all-pervasive war between the states. Cold Mountain is also the story of the struggles of women folk in the south left to their own devices while the majority of the men were at war. They must contend with bandits, soldiers, and the Home Guard as well. For Ada in particular, life is complicated by the death of her father, her inexperience with country life, worrying about Inman’s status, and unwanted attentions from the leader of the Home Guard. Ada’s salvation comes in the form of Ruby (Renee Zellweger), a tough, feisty, fearless, and hard-working country gal. The film skillfully cuts back and forth between Inman’s journey and Ida’s home front, teaching us that war just isn’t pretty from either angle. Ada is also befriended by the Swangers – Sally and Esco – and she and Ruby must later come to Sally’s rescue after the murder of her husband and sons by the Home Guard.

Now – as promised -- the REAL story behind the story! The movie, Cold Mountain, as most already understand, was based on a novel by the same name written by Charles Frazier. Frazier acknowledges in his remarks about the book that it was based on the lives of real people but that he had (understandably) exercised artistic license in partially fictionalizing as well as fleshing out the story. The real Cold Mountain is located about 10 miles southeast of Waynesville, NC, in Haywood County in the far western part of North Carolina. It is in Blue Mountain country not far from the peaks of the Smokey Mountains. One of my other activities, when I’m not roaming around Epinions, is genealogy. As it happens, I have been to Haywood County, NC on several occasions specifically for the purpose of researching some of these real folks on which these characters were based – long before either the novel of the movie had been created.

The featured character of “Cold Mountain”, “Inman”, was a real person. When pressed by Ada, in the movie (and the book), he states that his full name is “W.P. Inman”, and then comments that since the “W.P.” adds nothing, his friends call him just “Inman.” The full name of the real-life Inman was “William Pinkney Inman”, born circa 1840 in Haywood Co., NC. He was sixth child of Joshua and Mary Ann Smith Inman and fourth son. Two of his older brothers married Swanger daughters and the eldest brother was great-grandfather of the author of “Cold Mountain”, Charles Robinson Frazier. The Inmans lost four of their six sons during the Civil War, which illustrates just how costly this war was to many southern (as well as northern) families. Inman served as a private in the North Carolina 25th Infantry Regiment, Company F, until he deserted to begin his odyssey home as recounted, with some literary embellishment, by Frazier. He was killed by the Home Guard in 1864 or 1865.

The real name of W.P. Inman’s beloved was Margaret Henson, not Ada Monroe. She was daughter of Nathan and Catherine Pressley Henson. Margaret did indeed have a daughter by Inman, born 30Aug1864. Thus, the real name of the young girl who appears in the last scenes of the movie as well as the book, called simply “Miss Inman”, was Willie Ida Inman.

Was Inman’s great effort to return to his beloved worth it, after all, considering that he and Ada (Margaret) shared precious little time together in connubial bliss? Well, consider the fact that the product of their love, little Willie Ida Inman, lived until 13Oct1944, married Bryson Davis, produced five children – through whom she had 18 grandchildren, 37 great-grandchildren, 35 great-great-grandchildren, and, thus far, at least 15 triple-great-grandchildren. Many of these descendants of Inman are living today but none would have seen the light of day without Inman’s determination to return home to his beloved.

The Swanger family depicted in the book and the movie entitled “Cold Mountain” were a real family, although their given names were not Esco or Sally, as in the book. This Swanger family was John and Margaret Stevens Swanger, who lived near Cold Mountain in Haywood County, NC. John and Margaret had fourteen children – eight boys and six girls. John and Margaret’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth (Betsy), married Daniel Logan Inman. Another daughter, the ninth child in the Swanger family, Vilinda Alifair Swanger, married Joshua Ervin Inman, a brother of Daniel. Both of these were also brothers of William Pinkney Inman. The Swanger family of Haywood County lost the father of the family and two of eight sons as well as the two Inman sons-in-law. John and one of the sons were killed by outlaws (not the Home Guard) while returning home at the end of the war. Esco Swanger and two of his sons were murdered by the Home Guard in the movie version of Cold Mountain but in the novel, this episode involves another family altogether – not the Swangers. The film version needed to reduce the number of characters for continuity.

Both the book and the film have a profound anti-war message even without hammering on the point explicitly. The story can’t help but drive home a fundamental truism regarding the choices that existed for young men in the South during that time period and, more generally, wherever and whenever a nation is engulfed by war. Under such circumstances, there can be no safe choices. Whether you believed in the South’s cause or not, sitting out the war was not an option. If you fought, you would likely be killed in battle. If you tried to remain at home or return home in the midst of the war, you would likely be killed by the Home Guard. The only other alternative was to live in the mountains as an outlaw, and that too was fraught with danger.

For the women, the alternatives were no better. They had to try to keep their farms going without their men, but would be robbed of their livestock and produce and sometimes assaulted or killed by either members of the Home Guard or the outlaws. Then, periodically, they would receive word that one or another of their men folk had been killed in the war. They struggled to survive and were rewarded only by pain.

Cold Mountain is a movie well worth seeing for the excellent performances in each of the three principal roles. Beyond that, it is a perspective on history and war that we too seldom get – the impacts on the lives of ordinary people. Too often we tell the story of war antiseptically, as if it were a contest between leaders – like George W. Bush vs. Saddam Hussein. What gets lost in an approach to history that focuses exclusively on the big names is the pain and suffering of hundreds or thousands of families who lose their loved ones in conflicts that all too often prove senseless in the end, for one or both sides.

I was prepared to love this movie long before it was completed – first because it features people whose lives I’ve known about for years and, second, because it was to include the incomparable Nicole Kidman. For me, it was all too much like being let loose in a French pastry shop! While acknowledging my partiality, let me nevertheless add that this film was all that I could have asked for and more.

It is an epic romance, despite frustrating viewers by minimizing the actual time that the romantic leads spend together. That, after all, is part of the point of the story. War suffocates people, families, and relationships! The various vignettes based on the dizzying variety of people that Inman encounters provide viewers with some truly memorable character portraits, while also reminding us of the brutality that is war. From my perspective, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, and Renee Zellweger all nailed their parts, and the supporting roles are well acted as well. The cinematography is extraordinary, balancing grand scenic vistas, compact wooded scenes, and intimate close-ups. Minghella has given us a truly amazing amalgam: majestic romance struggling to stay afloat amidst the muck of war. And if the notion that love, in the end, succumbs to the hatred of war feels excessively pessimistic to you – well, as Paul Harvey used to say – “Now you know the rest of the story!!” Inman’s struggle produced little Willie Ida Inman – and life goes on.

Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age