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A charming and absorbing film. Readily appreciated for its superficial story it has darker inner meanings. It won an Oscar for Michael Caine, not an actor to my liking but this time he drops his silly irritating cockney accent and performs reasonably well but not really up to Oscar standard. Set during WWII in the year 1943, ostensibly the story of an orphan (Homer Wells - Tobey Maguire) brought up as the protégé of the Doctor Larch (Michael Caine) administering an orphanage in the state of Maine, the film deals with three taboos; illegal abortions; incest; the unfaithfulness of wives of serving soldiers away at war. In doing so the film spreads itself too thinly leaving many things unexplained such as the ether addiction of Dr. Larch, the background to Candy Kendall (former South African Playboy model Charlize Theron) having an abortion just before her forthcoming marriage to her army officer boy friend. How did someone find an abortionist back in 1943 and what did it cost? Surely it would have been easier for her boyfriend to find one of his Medical Officer colleagues willing to do it? Also since the medically unqualified Homer ends up by stepping into the shoes of his mentor Dr. Larch one senses the implication that the good doctor was himself unqualified. Dr. Larch regularly bids 'goodnight' to his beloved orphans with the phrase 'Goodnight my Princes of Maine: you Kings of New England' however this becomes incongruous when Homer's bogus degree certificate refers, in Latin, to 'the Republic of Maine'. The incest occurs between a father and his daughter who are part of a group of coloured itinerant apple pickers at the orchard where Homer gets his first job after leaving the orphanage. The Rules of the Cider House these workers must follow are clearly displayed but, although openly flaunted they are irrelevant to the film. In the language of cinematic symbolism the broken rules are those of life's moral code relating to the film's three taboos. Although that on the discussion of abortion has changed much since 1943 it was absolutely banned by the Hays office until William Wyler's 1951 'Detective Story' with Kirk Douglas. The other two remain as strong as ever; incest is universally repugnant and who is going to confront the soldier-hero returning from the war with tales of his wife's infidelity? One of the rare films dealing with this is John Schlesinger's 'Yanks' (1979)which earned Rachel Roberts a BAFTA award for best supporting actress. In CHR the main action takes place in an apple orchard - apple the 'forbidden fruit' of the Garden of Eden. This was the tacit theme of the popular wartime Andrews Sisters' hit 'Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree' which echoed the plea of the soldier at war to his girl friend/wife to remain faithful '....don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me until I come marching home .....'. A later hit tried to give him that reassurance when Alice Faye sang '..... no love, no nothing, I'm getting plenty of sleep.....no love until my baby comes home.....' Here the left-alone Candy blatantly goes out of her way to seduce the naive and innocent Homer, brought up as he was in the sheltered environment of an orphanage with no mother and a foster father. In one shot we see Candy with a come-hither look on her face as she sensually bites into the symbolically forbidden apple. In another Homer is shown how to pick apples, symbolising his sexual initiation. Towards the end Candy's husband is invalided home paralysed from the waist down after his plane crashes, presumably leaving him unable to have children but the story unsatisfactorily hangs there. Generally good acting all round and, unusually for a contemporary film, there is a refreshing lack of foul language.
One petty quibble: before seeing this film I found its title ambiguous as the word 'rules' can be interpreted as either noun or verb and still make sense.
A charming and absorbing film. Readily appreciated for its superficial story it has darker inner meanings. It won an Oscar for Michael Caine, not an actor to my liking but this time he drops his silly irritating cockney accent and performs reasonably well but not really up to Oscar standard. Set during WWII in the year 1943, ostensibly the story of an orphan (Homer Wells - Tobey Maguire) brought up as the protégé of the Doctor Larch (Michael Caine) administering an orphanage in the state of Maine, the film deals with three taboos; illegal abortions; incest; the unfaithfulness of wives of serving soldiers away at war. In doing so the film spreads itself too thinly leaving many things unexplained such as the ether addiction of Dr. Larch, the background to Candy Kendall (former South African Playboy model Charlize Theron) having an abortion just before her forthcoming marriage to her army officer boy friend. How did someone find an abortionist back in 1943 and what did it cost? Surely it would have been easier for her boyfriend to find one of his Medical Officer colleagues willing to do it? Also since the medically unqualified Homer ends up by stepping into the shoes of his mentor Dr. Larch one senses the implication that the good doctor was himself unqualified. Dr. Larch regularly bids 'goodnight' to his beloved orphans with the phrase 'Goodnight my Princes of Maine: you Kings of New England' however this becomes incongruous when Homer's bogus degree certificate refers, in Latin, to 'the Republic of Maine'. The incest occurs between a father and his daughter who are part of a group of coloured itinerant apple pickers at the orchard where Homer gets his first job after leaving the orphanage. The Rules of the Cider House these workers must follow are clearly displayed but, although openly flaunted they are irrelevant to the film. In the language of cinematic symbolism the broken rules are those of life's moral code relating to the film's three taboos. Although that on the discussion of abortion has changed much since 1943 it was absolutely banned by the Hays office until William Wyler's 1951 'Detective Story' with Kirk Douglas. The other two remain as strong as ever; incest is universally repugnant and who is going to confront the soldier-hero returning from the war with tales of his wife's infidelity? One of the rare films dealing with this is John Schlesinger's 'Yanks' (1979)which earned Rachel Roberts a BAFTA award for best supporting actress. In CHR the main action takes place in an apple orchard - apple the 'forbidden fruit' of the Garden of Eden. This was the tacit theme of the popular wartime Andrews Sisters' hit 'Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree' which echoed the plea of the soldier at war to his girl friend/wife to remain faithful '....don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me until I come marching home .....'. A later hit tried to give him that reassurance when Alice Faye sang '..... no love, no nothing, I'm getting plenty of sleep.....no love until my baby comes home.....' Here the left-alone Candy blatantly goes out of her way to seduce the naive and innocent Homer, brought up as he was in the sheltered environment of an orphanage with no mother and a foster father. In one shot we see Candy with a come-hither look on her face as she sensually bites into the symbolically forbidden apple. In another Homer is shown how to pick apples, symbolising his sexual initiation. Towards the end Candy's husband is invalided home paralysed from the waist down after his plane crashes, presumably leaving him unable to have children but the story unsatisfactorily hangs there. Generally good acting all round and, unusually for a contemporary film, there is a refreshing lack of foul language.
One petty quibble: before seeing this film I found its title ambiguous as the word 'rules' can be interpreted as either noun or verb and still make sense.