Adapted by John Irving from his own best-seller, this movie was extraordinary. This was the first time I have watched the movie and I loved it! I have always wanted to adopt a child and this tugged at my heart in many ways! The girls were chosen by adopter families more than the boys and the babies more than the older children. I don't know how many times I cried throughout the movie! The way the nurses had the children say goodnight to the children that were adopted and gone, and when Dr. Larch would say to the boys "Good night, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England."
The acting in this movie was very good! Dr. Larch was a very caring man played by Michael Caine, yet he was performing abortions, a drug user and fraudulently made Homer to be a doctor. Michael Caine told E.W.: “Its the hardest accent I've ever had to do. You have to concentrate like a laser beam. If you get one little word wrong, you sound completely phony.” Toby Maguire delivered a mature and subtle performance as the main character of Homer, and one can see his character grow in strength and self confidence as the film develops.
Torn between gratitude and desire to experience the world on his own, Homer undergoes trials, and a journey towards his own self-discovery, before discovering what's really important in life.
While at the orchard, his newly found job; Homer learns about an incestuous relationship between Mr. Rose and his daughter, and desires to help the girl by giving her an abortion. Throughout the movie, Homer was completely against performing an abortion but realizes Rose was going to take care of it herself and he knew he had to help her.
I thought it was very interesting, the name of the movie "Cider House Rules" comes from the actual rules posted in the cider house. The workers could not read and had no idea what the rules where. Homer reads the rules to the other workers and they say; rules are made to be broken, there are no absolutes. There are many examples of these throughout the movie; performing abortions, drug use, lying, incest and murder. Although all of these issues are throughout the movie, it was done in a tasteful manner.
I also loved how Dr. Larch teaches Homer to be of use! The boy did not need a college education, he was gifted and had the experience to become a wonderful doctor. I was shocked to find out in the movie, Homer was told he had a heart condition and he needed to stay calm and then come to find out that he did not have a heart condition at all! The doctor told him this in order for him to stay at the orphanage!
The doctor was abusing ether in order to sleep. The movie made it seem as though the doctor died from an accidental overdose but I wondered if he purposefully did it because Homer was not coming back and it broke his heart! The movie was perfect in length but I would have liked to see Wally and Candy come to the orphanage to adopt Curly! I have not read the book but since Wally was paralyzed I was hopeful they were going to adopt in the future!
The colors, camera angles, acting and story line made this movie! The movie won a best supporting actor Oscar for Caine and a screenplay Oscar for Irving. It was nominated for five other Oscars.
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