Toby fans will again recognize an excellent casting for this mc. Deals with some important and heavy topics, rather adeptly. It's only flaw I think is it's runtime. Points for genuine-ness, acting, and atmosphere. Disclaimer, this is certainly not a "happy" movie.

A beautifully filmed movie with some budding great actors and the touching stories of the various characters. Michael Caine passing on his acting chops to the young cast of Toby McGuire, Paul Rudd, Charlise and Kieran Culkin who does not know yet he will win many awards.

Wonderful movie. Heart warming. ❤️the theme song is incredible. Touches you. I saw it several times.

Great watch. Cast and scenery was incredible, Epic film

Based on the title, for years I thought it was some pretentious period piece with a yawn-inducing love story. Late to the game, I finally gave it a chance. What a reward I got. Though the movie does has a love story, it's beautifully crafted into the plot. Tobey Maguire has never been better. The rest of the cast is STELLAR- Michael Caine, Charlize Theron, Paul Rudd, Kathy Baker, Jane Alexander, Kate Nelligan, Ezykah Badu, JK Simmons, Kiernan Culkin, and others. Michael Caine won an Oscar for his performance here; well deserved. The film was nominated for 5 Academy Awards (including Best Picture), winning two. Such a beautiful film with an outstanding cast and excellent story, I waited far too long to see it. Just goes to show you can't judge a film by it's title (except maybe Psycho).

Love this film to the bone.

The story seems interesting, but not exciting and out of touch with our life.

It’s a movie that gives me all the feels very special to my heart. A little biased but I’ll tell you want this movie gets me every time.

A sick take on a sick topic.

Amazing emersive experience of the period and the individuals dealing with day to day life. Good characterisations, not often seen today.

The film is complete gutter trash and I have zero qualms about saying so. I felt this way when I first watched it in 2000, and knowing it exists as part of American film history makes me sick. The characters don’t understand the reasons behind the rules they are asked to abide by, they just willynilly break them haphazardly. From slaughtering the unborn or falsifying college degrees at its worst, to silly things like standing on top of a building where they could fall and hurt themselves, the script writer has a warped, twisted view of the world and how it works. The goal of the film is to reshape how the rising generation feels about the world, and not for the better. The silver screen is now just a cesspool of gutter trash and this film is one of the worst because it packages it like a friendly coming of age film, when in reality it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Don’t fill your brain with this muck. Watch something else.

A lovely coming-of-age film with beautiful performances

Remember Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, doing that horrific Cockney accent? Michael Caine in this movie is the reverse version of that, as an English actor pretending to be a second-generation immigrant to Maine who for some reason has a weird and inconsistent Southern drawl. Featuring a strong and relatively well-aged cast (many of the performers are still top-flight acting talent 20+ years later, including Caine, Theron, Rudd, and even J.K. Simmons and a young Kieran Culkin in minor roles), The Cider House Rules is more like a shopping list of generally Oscar-ish themes that all just tend to happen to the same charater - familial affection, the discovery of romance, racial tensions, class conflict, domestic abuse, and the role of abortion. Just throw them all at the wall and see what sticks, I guess. It's not like any of the individual subplots are particularly bad, but the film feels totally noncommittal in what it wants to actually be about (ironically going against one of the primary lessons taught to Maguire's Homer, that one's principles should guide your decisions rather than waiting for others to make them for you), and so eventually ends up being generally heartwarming with decent performances but far from focused. At the end of this film (spoilers), Homer settles down to replace his beloved mentor/father figure as the physician in residence at the orphanage, using fake degrees and a falsified resume. I know this is set in the 1940s and the medical field was still working on stuff like penicillin and the polio vaccine, but that is super illegal. Homer's going to jail in a couple years when someone sues him and discovers that he doesn't have liability insurance. (1.5/5)

The movie doesn't reach the height that the novel achieves, but still holds the power of choice over the viewer/reader. Irving's reference to David Copperfield in this novel/movie, succeeds in so many levels delving in the orphan Davids own situation along with Homer Wells. Character development in both pieces is outstanding.

There is a clear connection between John Irving's love and philosophical fascination for human relations, psychology and humanitarian devotion, and Lasse Hallström's ability to create a deeper understanding of similar aspects, but only as a film tale. As Irving brings it out with words and a wonderfully vivid imagination, Hallström has a way of bringing out the best in actors, and of managing to find the best cast to get it right. Even if many would say that the book is better than the film, which so often is typical, there probably are few better around to transform this John Irving story into film than just Lasse Hallström.

An entertaining drama with solid performances and a beautiful score.

A stirring and rural love triangle with some hearty moments. The 4 leads elevate the Hallmark-ish screenplay quite a bit.

Lasse Hallstrom's The Cider House Rules, based on the John Irving novel, manages to capture all of the humanity that Irving infused in the source material, thanks in large part to the script written by Irving himself. Tobey Maguire plays Homer Wells, a young man who has grown up in an orphanage in rural Maine, mentored by Dr Larch (Michael Caine) to be his successor. The film subtly but fearlessly treads on some sensitive issues (abortion, addiction, morality…) but never loses sight of the interpersonal relationships developed between the characters that drive the story forward. The incredibly soppy music score wears thin fairly quickly, but the acting, cinematography and fascinating story more than compensate for the one minor complaint.

This movie was surprisingly serious. But it was a great story and brings up many moral questions to light. Michael Kane gives a great performance! He's a legend

Well produced but so clean round the edges that it can't penetrate the heavy content. The syrupy music is so softening that you feel like it's a Disney film in spite of the whole incest, paralysis, drug dependency, stabbing and heartbreak. Some of the black actors were great, Charlize was quite good but much of it was as wet, which is Toby Maguire's thing I guess. How Caine got a best supporting actor I have no idea. The lack of emotional engagement with any character really let the film down.