1860s America — In a country torn in two by war, it will take an extraordinary journey for people to come together as one. This journey is at the heart of Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier’s National Book Award-winning novel about love, friendship, nature, survival and the changing of America at the end of the Civil War, and now a motion picture directed by Academy Award-winner Anthony Minghella (“The English Patient”) and starring a cast headed by Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger.
Cold Mountain follows the intertwined paths of three people equally uprooted by war, three people whose physical and spiritual survival comes to depend entirely on one another. First, there is the Confederate soldier Inman (Jude Law) who, wounded in battle, fights his way home to the woman he loves – crossing a nation at war with itself.
As he treks towards his beloved Ada (Nicole Kidman), driven by memories, Inman encounters slaves and rebels, fends off soldiers and bounty hunters and finds unexpected friends and dangerous enemies at every turn. In a parallel journey of faith and newfound bravery, Ada’s road is no easier as this once well-bred, sheltered woman must take on a perilous world alone, bereft of companionship or knowledge of the outside world, and protect her father’s farm from ruin and attack.
Rescue arrives for Ada in the unlikely form of a feisty drifter named Ruby (Renee Zellweger), who becomes an equal part of the story as she teaches Ada about strength, self-reliance and an astonishing natural world Ada has never known. Now, as they come ever closer to one another, Inman, Ada and Ruby weave a story about the longing for home after being in the wilderness, the longing for peace after the brutality of war, and the longing for love and family at the heart of the American experience.
Read the Full Production Notes
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
Starring: Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, Kathy Baker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jena Malone, Natalie Portman
Screenplay by: Anthony Minghella
Production Design by: Dante Ferretti
Cinematography by: John Seale
Film Editing by: Walter Murch
Costume Design by: Carlo Poggioli, Ann Roth
Set Decoration by: Francesca Lo Schiavo
MPAA Rating: R for violence and sexuality.
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: December 12, 2003
