Product Details

• Actors: Tobey Maguire, Delroy Lindo
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Miramax
• DVD Release Date: August 15, 2000
• Run Time: 125 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (234 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00003CWNR
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,199 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Cider House Rules (Miramax Collector's Series)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

In adapting his own novel The Cider House Rules for the screen, John Irving sacrificed at least some of the depth and detail that made his humanitarian themes resonate, while the film--directed with Scandinavian sobriety by Lasse Hallström--is often vague about the complex issues (abortion, incest, responsibility) that lie at its core. Allowing for this ambiguity (which is arguably intentional), the film retains much of what made Irving's novel so admired, and like Hallström's earlier feature What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, it's blessed with a generous, forgiving spirit toward the mistakes, foibles, and desires of its many engaging characters.

Central to the story (set during World War II) is Homer (Tobey Maguire), a young man raised in a Maine orphanage, where the ether-sniffing Dr. Larch (Michael Caine) rules with benevolent grace while performing safe but illegal abortions. To expand his horizons, Homer follows a young couple (Charlize Theron, Paul Rudd) to do fieldwork on an apple farm, where his innocent eyes are opened to the good and evil of the world--and to the realization that not all rules are steadfast in all situations. By the time Homer returns to the orphanage, The Cider House Rules--which features one of Caine's finest performances--is memorable more for its many charming and insightful moments than for any lasting dramatic impact. Is Homer fated to come full circle in his kindhearted journey? It's left to the viewer to decide. --Jeff Shannon

Product Description

A compassionate young man raised in an orphanage and trained to be a doctor there decides to leave to see the world. Homer leaves with wally & candy to work on wallys family apple farm. Wally goes off to war leaving homer & candy alone together. What will homer learn about live & love in the cider house? Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 09/07/2004 Starring: Tobey Maguire Delroy Lindo Run time: 126 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Lasse Hallstrom

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A movie for grown-ups, August 14, 2000

By 

"sprockets" (NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cider House Rules (Miramax Collector's Series) (DVD)

Just when thoughtful adults despair that Hollywood will never again make movies for them to enjoy, Cider House Rules comes along and gives everybody reason to hope. From its wide, opening shot to its literary ending, this film delivers to its audience an old-fashioned, satisfying, movie-going experience while at the same time focusing on quite a surprising topic: abortion. Framed with Dickensian sympathy for all its characters, Cider House weaves its way in and out of the lives of half a dozen startlingly original people, many of them quite unusual for mainstream cinema. Michael Caine picked up the Oscar (he's a great actor but he's become a kind of beloved pet for middle-aged movie fans) as a drug-addicted humanitarian, yet Delroy Lindo gives the most haunting and complex performance as the black foreman of an apple-picking crew who loves his daughter too much. Tobey Maguire and Charlize Theron make this long film continuously watchable and even warmly sunny despite its repeated turns into dark material, and a gaggle of adorable moppet orphans keep tugging at the heart strings, but not so much you feel abused. A rare modern day classic.

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Guide to the Rules, December 3, 2002

By 

J. Michael Click (Fort Worth, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cider House Rules (Miramax Collector's Series) (DVD)

A sensitive and intelligent character-driven film, adapted from John Irving's novel by the author himself, which features truly breathtaking cinematography, a lush musical score, and uniformly excellent performances by a formidable cast which includes Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron, Delroy Lindo, Paul Rudd, Kathy Baker, Jane Alexander, and supporting Oscar-winner Michael Caine. The main plot line centers around a young man (Maguire), raised in an orphanage headed by a charismatic doctor (Caine), who decides to venture out into the world and learns the hard way that life is not merely black and white, but many subtle variations of gray. While this is hardly a unique theme, the characters in "Cider House Rules" are so exquisitely drawn, and the movie so masterfully produced, that everything which might in lesser hands seem overly familiar appears fresh, new, and distinctive.

The DVD offers a perfect sound and video transfer, and includes a nice selection of "extras", including a documentary on the making of the film, the original Theatrical Trailer, and highlights of the television ad campaign. Overall, the DVD is an exemplary presentation of a bona fide modern classic, and one that's well worth multiple viewings.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Literate, Satisfying, Dramatic....More Like This Please, December 6, 2002

By 

carol irvin "carol irvin" (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cider House Rules (Miramax Collector's Series) (DVD)

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.