The Cider House Rules

I recently watched The Cider House Rules, I have to say it was actually a pretty good film.  This movie surprised because from what I have heard, this movie was not supposed to be anything special, so I had a negative bias towards this film but I thought this movie was actually quite interesting.

In looking at the chapters from the book for this section, chapter 12 deals with the analysis of the entire film.  This film was extremely interesting to me, this was a very eventful movie, with the orphanage, the leaving of the orphanage, the training in abortions, World War II, incest, and the list continues.

One reason why I thought that this film was interesting was because of the great acting in this movie.  Although he didn't play a huge part in this movie, Paul Rudd is one of my favorite actors of all time and any movie he is in I am interested in, as well as Toby Maguire, and Mike Caine.  This acting played a great part in this movie.

When analyzing this film, there are several things that as a viewer you need to be aware of, for example the theme.  This movie is a drama movie so the theme of this movie is going to be somewhat complex, and from what I got out of this movie was making your own decisions.  With that being said, this movie does a good job with all the twists in the movie it makes it unpredictable.

Looking at the overall evaluation of this film, I think this movie could be one of Toby Maguire's best performances.  His quiet character who didn't even finish high school, he is actually quite skillful and modest character.  I can't imagine how tough it would be for an orphan to be returned by families twice, and be beaten like he was by the one family.  However, luck does change and Dr. Lach takes him and turns him basically into a doctor without the title of one.

I also thought this movie was interesting because not only is Dr. Lach a doctor, but he is also an abortionist, which is the first movie I have seen dealing with abortion.  He also trains Homer to be an abortionist to, and later in this film he actually performs one, when Arthur impregnates his daughter and although Homer is against it, he performs an abortion in this situation.

This movie is all about your own decision making.  And as the movie goes on it really develops because they are faced with difficult situations to deal with.

In chapter 15, it deals with film and society.  And in particular how this movie may shape or reflect social and cultural values.  I think this movie did both, because this movie is based in the WWII era, and that was not only different culturally, but they also helped form them to what they are today.