Rating: 
Summary: Warm "Cider"
Review: Based upon his own book, author John Irving, won an Oscar for the screenplay to The Cider House Rules. This is a timeless tale about finding out who you are, meeting your potential, and finding your way. Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, the film version, and for the record I haven't read the book, is very good.Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire) has led a very shelterd life, as an orphan, in Maine. All he has ever known about life, has come from inside the walls of St. Cloud Orphanage, and nothing else. Dr Larch (Michael Caine), the administrator of St. Cloud, is hoping that Homer will one day replace him. Although he has great respect for his mentor, when the young man meets and falls for Candy (Charlize Theron), he finds out that life has much more to offer, than just the orphanage. The cast is really good here. I had originally avoided the film, dismissing it, for one reason or another, during its theatrical run. I must say that I am very glad I finally sat down to watch the movie. It's a film that has a lot of elements that many folks will be able to identify with, whether male-female, young or old. At some point, we all want more from life, or to experience all that life has to give us. The collector's series DVD has a handfull of well produced extras. The audio commentary with Hallstrom, author/scripter Irving, and producer Richard N. Gladstien, is very good and informative--particularly those comments given by Irving. There are also a few deleted scenes, a standard "making of" featurette, cast/crew notes, the theatrical trailer, and television spots, rounding it all out. The Cider House Rules is recommended
Rating:
Summary: Evocative film whith strong performances
Review: The central character of this film at first sight appears to be Michael Caine's Dr Larch. It soon becomes apparent that the central role is of his unofficially adopted son, Homer Wells, played by Tobey Maguire. This is perhaps the only serious criticism of the film- I would have liked to have seen more of Larch, but Homer goes off and spends time with other, less interesting characters. It may be because I like Michael Caine or because his performance was strong enough to win him an Oscar, or just because the eccentric character is so different from anything Caine has played before. This is not to diminish Maguire's performance; he comes through very strongly and is not overshadowed by the veteran actor. He plays Homer very much like John Boy Walton, an educated innocent who has outgrown his place of birth and needs to go out into the world to get some real learning. This is highlighted by the fact that he has had much experience of women's bodies in an gynaecological sense, but no intimate encounters of his own. Homer goes to work on a cider farm, and the people he meets there have a huge influence on his life. There is an amusing performance from rapper Heavy D, which nicely balances Delroy Lindo's hard man character. The music is layed on a bit too thickly at times and is in danger of swamping the production. Otherwise this is a top film.
Rating: 
Summary: What a Laugher !!
Review: Read the other reviews to get the "storyline." Boring, predictable and a total waste of two hours. Rearrange your sock drawer instead. It will be much more stimulating.
Rating: 
Summary: Literate, Satisfying, Dramatic....More Like This Please
Review: Director Lasse Hallström joins his formidable talent with novelist/screenwriter John Irving and the results are so pleasantly literate and dramatically satisfying. I haven't read the novel so I can't compare the two but films vs. their novels' comparisions are almost impossible anyway since each media of expression is so unlike the other. For one, film is a collaborative medium whereas fiction writing is a solitary pursuit. Judged on its own, the film works perfectly. It revolves around a young man, Homer (Tobey Maguire), raised in an orphanage by its doctor (Michael Caine) who loves him like his own son. Homer eventually needs to go out into the larger world and experience what it has to offer. He has had problems with the doctor's inability to see the black and white of right and wrong. In his exposure to the outside world, by working in a Cider House in Maine, Homer too is forced to confront the gray areas inbetween right and wrong. Delroy Lindo, as the crew boss of the Cider House, does a formidable job playing the pivotal character from whom Homer will learn the inexact rules for living his life. Caine and Irving deservedly won Oscars for their work.
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece of adaptation
Review: Novelists are notoriously precious about adapting their work for the screen, and usually very bad at it. John Irving is an exception and a deserving Oscar-winner for this screenplay which recognises the essential differences between a book and a film. By pushing the history of abortion into the background, compressing the novel's timeline, and working in a little of "David Copperfield", Irving manages to reconfigure this story into a tale which is less about abortion and more about finding one's place in the world - and recognising, crucially, that those who want to make the world's rules first have to live in it. The theme isn't hammered home, but is slowly allowed to declare itself through the experiences of Homer Wells, played with considerable skill and endearment by Tobey Maguire, and Dr. Wilbur Larch, in another great performance from Michael Caine. This is what an adaptation should be: not a simple translation from page to screen, but a transposition from one register to another, making the film the occasion for a new imaginative experience without losing the qualities for which the novel is so loved. Irving's insightful book "My Movie Business" tells the tale of how it was done.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Based on the novel by John Irving, set in the 1940s, the Cider House Rules is a heartwarming story of relationships bonded by love and care.
The movie starts in a narrative style of Dr.Larch (Michael Caine) who is the caretaker of an orphanage in rural Maine. The orphanage has several kids managed lovingly by Dr. Larch along with two nurses. It is also a hospital, which takes care of delivering babies and terminating unwanted pregnancies in a discreet manner. Sometimes, prospective parents wishing to adopt a child visit the orphanage and a lucky one is taken away while the other children sadly wait their turn. One such orphan is Holmer ( Tobey Maguire) who is no longer a kid and has a special place in Dr.Larch's heart. While, the doctor shows no outward love for him, he has trained Holmer in the practice of gynecology and taken care of him in many ways known and unknown to the latter. Holmer is popular with all the kids and the one Dr. Larch has groomed to take over after him. Then , one day a young couple arrives to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy, Wally ( Paul Rudd ) who is a pilot and his girlfriend Candy ( Charlize Theron ) have chosen this place because of it's remote location. Dr.Larch and Holmer take good care of her. Holmer is friendly with the couple and asks for a ride to town. He wants to see the world outside , he wants to do other jobs and things. His life so far has been confined to the orphanage. He decides to leave the orphanage alongwith Wally and Candy to see the world. Dr.Larch can't accept this and is hurt, he howver, does not prevent Holmer as he knows that it was bound to happen. Everybody go out to wish Holmer an emotional goodbye , but Dr.Larch who is unable to face the parting prefers to watch from his room. Holmer too cannot muster the courage to bid farewell to Dr.Larch.
Now, he is on his own , he sees the ocean and the country side. Wally willingly offers him a job at his apple orchard. You must be the most overqualified apple picker he says. But, Holmer takes it and quickly learns his job. He makes friends with the other black workers in the Cider House.He learns a thing a two about rules and about the tragic lives of his black co-workers.
Inevitably, he falls in love with Candy who also fancies him especially when Wally is on war duty in Asia. The two have developed a relationship where the future is uncertain so, they prefer to wait and see. Meanwhile, Dr.Larch's health is failing and is to be replaced. What does Holmer do now? He is caught between the non-commital Candy and his moral duty of taking over the orphage and hospital after Dr.Larch. The movie has a relaxed pace.The rural settings have a calming effect on all the characters. Their emotions have been brought out in a quiet, dignified manner without any melodrama. You will pause to think about the life of orphans and the immense love and care their caretakers offer them. The acting is superlative. Michael Caine has won an Oscar for his role. Tobey Maguire as the young Holmer has delivered well. The movie makes it's characters your own as they have their mind and heart in the right place. Definitely worth watching.
Rating:
Summary: Awfully disappointing
Review: I read the book first. It's a wonderful story, but compared to the text, the movie is didactic, the characters flat, and the whole intonation terribly false. The movie makes the orphanage to look like a kindergarten birthday party, Dr. Larch and the nurses like Sunday charity workers, and Homer Wells like a stuttering half-wit. None of this is in the book. It's a shame it got so maimed.
Rating:
Summary: BEST FILM
Review: The one and only reason I wanted to view this movie is because of Tobey Maguire. So I put the movie in expecting to fast forward to just the scenes with him in them. The more I watched the more attached I became. The story is so compelling it pulls anyone into it. The book wasn't so great but the movie is a MUST SEE. I loved every moment of it. I was even sad to take it back to the movie rental store in which I had gotten it. So not even 24 hours later I had purchased the film. It is one of the best i've seen. Definately one of my favorites in my collection.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent movie
Review: This is a terrific movie. John Irving was able to boil the story down from his very lengthy, over-wrought novel about the St. Cloud orphanage to its true essence and provide a very satisfying tale of life in the earlier part of the century when orphans homes were the only haven for many unwanted children.
Tobey Macguire plays Homer with great sympathy and is completely believable. I still have not figured out the meaning of the Cider House Rules or its impact on the story, but I'm ploughing my way through the book in hope of enlightenment.
Rating: 
Summary: "Nobody ever wants me!"
Review: Partial adaptation of John Irving's sprawling novel set during WWII on the Home Front in rural New England. Specifically, the setting is an orphanage that also serves as a safe place for the local young ladies to terminate unwanted pregnancies. A place, in other words, for unwanted children -- in or out of the womb. Michael Caine is Dr. Larch, the gruff but loving doctor who administrates the place. He's assisted in the medical procedures and the care of the tykes by 2 nurses and a grown orphan named Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire, seething with interior activity). Though young Homer shows a brilliant knack for medicine, he's a pro-life kind of guy, and the secret business of the orphanage starts to grate. He's also naturally bored out of his mind, living in an orphanage with no friends his own age. Therefore, when an engaged, glamorous couple (Paul Rudd and Charlize Theron) arrive to get a quick abortion before the male half of the relationship resumes his flying-ace-hero role in the War, Homer latches onto them as a means of escape. By the way, this strikes me as a rather lame plot contrivance: one doubts that either Rudd or Theron would've been destroyed by the scandal of pregnancy before marriage (after all, he's in the War, and they're engaged, anyway). At any rate, Homer hitches with them to the flying ace's mother's estate -- a large apple orchard, replete with migrant African American laborers from Down South. (They move up and down the East Coast with the seasons.) Unrealistically enough, Homer joins their crew. He also learns how to trap lobsters with Theron and her father. The movie's rather good at presenting real, honest-to-goodness work, being particularly educational about the picking of apples. It's rather less good at the musty, lit'ry symbolism, typified by the "cider house rules" themselves. These "rules" turn out to be silly in terms of practical application, and are evidently meant to symbolize ALL rules, papal bulls against abortion, in particular. I'm afraid this is John Irving's fault, a derivatively literary author who thinks that a movie needs a Big, Dreadfully Obvious Scene, such as the one wherein the "rules" are burned after everyone makes sage speeches. And though I'm personally pro-choice and agree with Mr. Irving's sentiments about that issue, I cannot stand to be lectured at in art. The self-righteousness about abortion pretty much ruins an otherwise pleasant movie. The actors and director Lasse Hallstrom do their best to overcome Irving's egregiousness: the performances, especially Maguire's, are excellent, and the direction is unobtrusive. The beautifully photographed scenery and the early scenes with the lovable orphans are especially meritable.
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