Nehring The Edge: THE CIDER HOUSE RULES (1999) movie reviews

SHORT REVIEW: Another reasoned, evenhanded look at a social issue by Hollywood. I wish they’d stop with this fevered demand for honest and open debate and let us really know what they believe.

***SPOILER ALERT***
HEY LISTEN UP, I’M GOING TO RUIN THE MOVIE!

Wow…all I have to say is…wow. To call this film uneven is like calling the ocean “a little damp.”

This is a film about abortion. It comes down on the side of approving and supporting the mother killing the baby. Then again, given the world the film portrays, there is no other way to come down.

The only person who argues against casual abortion is Homer Wells (played wonderfully by Tobey Maguire) who is, at the time, a kind but endlessly ignorant boy. I have absolutely no problem with filmmakers tackling this sensitive issue. It needs to be discussed. The problem I have with this film is a lecture, not a discussion. Only one side of the argument is presented and it is presented in such a close-minded way that it only serves to shuttle this film into the realm of propaganda (I do not use that word lightly.) The film follows the transformation of a young, idealistic Homer as he grows up in a peaceful, but depressing, orphanage. There he learns to deliver babies and by extension terminate babies under the tutorage of his (unofficially) adoptive father Dr. Larch. Homer leaves the safety of the orphanage and goes into the real world. Homer is a strict pro-lifer when he lives in the orphanage but changes his tune when he is confronted by reality. The main focus of Homer’s awakening comes when he discovers that the daughter of an American-African migrant worker has become pregnant through incestuous rape. Homer is forced by the situation to perform an abortion on the raped daughter. This is the heroic path, from pro-lifer to active abortionist…nice.

I have so many things to complain about here my head is swimming. To frame the argument for abortion in such an overheated and breathless way is so cheap. To frame the argument in a racist context is worse. Yeah, I said racist.

Homer spends his childhood, his time of innocence, in the nearly idyllic all-white orphanage. There everyone lives in relative peace under the kind watchful eye of the father figure Dr. Larch who comes across as a flawed god trying to do his best to clean up the sins of mere mortals. Homer is only able to experience the real world when he leaves this all-white bastion. He crosses into the real world by working the apple orchards with American-Africans. These folk fight, smoke, drink and swear. They are without self respect or restraint (one of the male characters is introduced completely naked – running around without an ounce of shame of his public nudity.) Back in the orphanage the god-like Dr. Larch explains that people cannot be trusted to do the right thing and the filmmakers use American-Africans to show us what Dr. Larch means. The lower urges and sins of mankind are expressed through these black characters. Even when Homer takes up with a married woman it is not shown as a horrible sin, but as a reasonable romance. The American-Africans, in contrast, are troubled by incest. The whites in the film are mostly shown having casual, abortions of convenience. American-Africans are shown having abortions to keep them from popping out defective children. Nice message when one considers the racist history of the pro-abortion movement and Margaret Sanger.

This is a well-shot and incredibly well acted propaganda piece supporting the murder of babies. Maybe I’ll have a double feature in my home with this movie and Million Dollar Baby. Hollywood has released major films that support killing you before you were born and killing you when you appear to serve no useful function to society. These movies are released to critical acclaim and an honest look at the story of Christ is run out of town. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one troubled by the messages were getting from the left-coast.

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