Diane Ellis – Google

Yuck. Probably the worst movie I have ever seen. Sordid, sordid, sordid garbage dressing itself up as sentimental kitsch. I had seen the word "Cider" in the title, and I thought it was a movie version of the British novel, "Cider with Rosie," which I did eventually see. I love movies like "Cider With Rosie": Even though the place and time are distant from anything I know, there is a feeling that these are real people, that it's either a true story, or just very "true to life". Not so at all with "The Cider House Rules", which was emotionally manipulative, superficial, uncaring about its characters, and very self-righteous and moralising in a completely amoral way. It was the opposite of uplifting. It was creepy. Yuck, again.

Now I understand John Coffey's words when the search party found him holding the bodies of the two murdered girls. He said, "I couldn't help it. I tried to take it back, but it was too late." He was trying to bring the two little girls back to life with his healing touch after they had been murdered by the hired hand who ends up in the same cell block. With John's other healings he talks about "taking it back". He wasn't savvy enough about the world to know that everyone would think he had murdered the girls, that no one would know what he was talking about. It's very much too bad that he was all alone in the world, that there was no one at the time to explain what he meant and what had happened. Only on death row do his prison guards realize the truth. I still think it's too bad they didn't try to have his execution stopped. Paul does feel guilty about it for the rest of his life. His wife said, "Talk to John. Ask him what he wants." It's true John wanted to die. He was so tired because of his gifts, because of feeling people's pain all the time. Still, the truth is not served when an innocent man is executed for a crime he did not commit. The guilty man was already dead, shot by the prison guard who went mad. I still think it would have been better for the truth to come out. As it is, Paul carries the guilt of John's death for the rest of his life, and he believes he is being punished with an extra long life because of his role in John's death. He should have told the prison warden whose wife was cured of cancer by John. Perhaps there could have been a different outcome, and even a group of people gathered around who would befriend John. I was glad that Paul and Brutus transferred away from death row and never took part in any more executions after John's death. The whole story serves as a strong argument against capital punishment. Such a barbaric practice. And the crowds that turned up to witness the executions. I know it was the same with hangings. This was a very powerful story, very well told. Not too long at three hours. This length of time was needed to tell the story properly. Good acting, directing, everything. I have not read the book.