I classified this movie as a western. The story began in Ireland and ended up on the rolling plains of Oklahoma. This is a love story with a truly American twist in that the lowly commoner wins the love of the gentry of the old country. Joseph Donnelly played by Tom Cruise holds his father as he dies after explaining, that a man is nothing with out land. The land is a man’s soul. Shannon Christie played by Nicole Kidman shows Joseph a flier from America about free land and tells him she is running away to America to get some of the free land. She has her mother’s silver spoons and that will get her to Oklahoma and the free land.

With many twists and turns the two opposite people cross the Atlantic with Joseph as Shannon’s servant. Arriving in Boston the two young people start to separate but are thrown together by a cruel act of fate. They become close and depend upon each other as Shannon gets a taste of being poor and looking for every meal. Things continue to happen and some bad events happen and they are separated.

The story continues and Joseph awakens to his dream and ends up in Oklahoma where he meets Shannon again. I wont spoil the ending for you but it is a great story with epic vistas and real American history in it. I rate it as a movie to see and it is close to my top 100 best western movies.

The first scenes are of Pettersburg, Virginia July 1864, which highlights the inhumanity of war. The movie then moves back three years to show the beginning of this love story. The sequence highlights the meeting of two young people and how it was in the mid 1850’s tradition. Visually you observe their interest and awkwardness at meeting and talking together. There are many scenes with classical music being played on a piano, bluegrass with a banjo, fiddle, and shape-note singing all of it contributing to the movement of the love story.

As Inman starts off to war Ada gives him a tintype picture of her self and a book. Inman is overcome by her innocence and beauty and they kiss only once but with a visible impact on both of them. The Home Guard is inserted at this point as a reflection of what goes bad during war on the home front.

The viewer travels back to scenes of war and mayhem. Inman gets wounded and is shipped to a hospital where he survives and hears Ada’s voice calling him home. He begins the journey back to Cold Mountain on foot, which is fraught with many encounters, roadblocks, and hardships.

Back in Cold Mountain Ada is barely surviving on Black Cove farm. Her Father has died and she has no clue how to survive. She is joined by Ruby who is totally self-sufficient but homeless. The two join together to survive the winter, which is approaching. The Home guard is like a vulture just waiting in the shadows to create problems and raise havoc.

This movie was a very compelling chronicle on the time and conveyed the loss of innocence for a country as well as pushing forth the blossoms of new love. I enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to those who are captured with this time frame in history.

Adapted from the book Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.