Princes of Maine and Kings of New England

The Cider House Rules

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron, Michael Caine

Released: 10/21/99

Viewed in theaters: 3/25/00

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to American Beauty)

Best Director - Lasse Hallstrom (lost to Sam Mendes for American Beauty)

Best Supporting Actor - Michael Caine (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay - John Irving (won)

Best Score - Rachel Portman (lost to John Corigliano for The Red Violin)

Best Editing (lost to The Matrix)

Best Art Direction (lost to Sleepy Hallow)

I don't love this movie, but I don't hate it either. I think it tried to hard to be Oscar-bait and is a bit over-rated. This was my third time seeing the movie, and honestly, I was kinda bored through the whole movie.

The Cider House Rules is a film that can get a little sappy even though it deals with themes such as abortion, incest, suicide, and adultery, but they kinda skim over all those or they just don't make them as big a deal as they should be. Caine plays the proprietor or an orphanage in Maine (the locations in the film are gorgeous) who also gives abortions if the mother asks for them and throughout the first hour of the movie you're bombarded with so many cute orphan children that it makes you want to do a Jolie-Pitt and adopt all of them. Look, there's Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle who needs a breathing machine! And poor Curly; that nice couple won't adopt him because he's a boy and they chose Mel Gibson's daughter from The Patriot instead. And there's Keiran Culkin being all emo!

Tobey Maguire, who was about 23 when he filmed the movie (which means he looks 15 in the movie) plays Homer who also grew up as an orphan and Dr. Larch wants him to take over for him when he retires, but Homer has other ideas and wants to see life outside of the orphanage. So he decides to work on an orchard. Actually, that's when the movie started getting a little slow for me...I guess I missed seeing all the cute orphan children.

Do I think Michael Caine should have won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar? Find out here! (Those of you who know me already know my answer!)