Review of The Cider House Rules (1999)
Seen in 2024.
An orphan, with informal training as a gynaechologist, goes out to see a second tiny piece of Maine in the 1940s.
It’s an effective drama, presented in Hallström’s smoothly scored and cinematic manner, typical of the 1990s. Unusually, it’s not about rich twits. Glamour is instead reserved for love, work, and helping others. The subtext is even more unusual. The titular rules of the “cider house” on a minor estate are rejected by seasonal workers because they were not made by the workers themselves: A literally anarchist conclusion. The main characters are all deeply flawed. Even Larch, a relative role model, is an addict, constantly lying and usually to his own advantage. The fact that he also performs medically unnecessary abortions is morally irrelevant compared to how he lets Homer live in fear of a fictional disease for years. These flaws do not constitute hamartia because they do not drive the plot, but they still serve an important function of hamartia, in making the characters more relatable and adding a juicy, quasi-gossipy dimension to what would otherwise be a trivial story.