Cold Mountain (2003)
Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger

This movie is a beautiful rendering of Charles Frazier's mythical vision.

The story involves two related strands of plot: Inman, wounded during a Civil War battle, makes his way home to Cold Mountain and to his love, Ada Monroe; Ada, in the meantime, struggles to cultivate her failing farmland.

And speaking of myth—Cold Mountain is often tied to Odysseus and his journey home. But it's also a failed return to Eden; after all, Odysseus makes it back to Penelope and Ithaca while Inman, poor boy, is out.  His loss of innocence and experience of evil mean he can never gain re-entrance to paradise. (In the book Ada specifically tells us her name is pronounced with a short, not long, vowel sound.  Add the first initial of her last name, and you get AdaM.  A little schematic ... but there it is).

The film's casting for the most part is solid. Some find Nicole Kidman's Vanity Fair perfection over-the-top, but that's the point—her numinous beauty is the mythical Eve that drives Inman onward.  As for Renee Zellweger, despite her Oscar she seems miscast as the raw, hard-bitten Ruby.  (Am I alone in the universe on this?) But Jude Law is superb. He's exactly how I picture Inman: gaunt and haunted—a fugitive soul shut out from grace.