"The Cider House Rules" is a very well-crafted film. The acting is generally quite good, the music terrific and the story interesting...though also depressing as can be and a bit repellent. The story is set in two places--at a god-awful orphanage and at an orchard nearby.

When the story begins, you learn from the Doctor (Michael Caine) that little Homer was adopted and returned twice...and so the Doctor has raised him himself and taught this teen to be a doctor. And so, in this world of "makin' your own rules", he has the young man deliver babies and even observe abortions...though Homer thinks abortions are wrong. Of course, you KNOW that this will come back to haunt him later...after he leaves the orphanage to inexplicably become an apple-picker.

Dying kids who cannot breathe, abortions, abandoned babies, incest and murder---this film is the ultimate in awfulness. Enjoyable it clearly is not...though the film did win two Oscars. One, oddly, was for Michael Caine. While I love Caine, in this film his accent was just bizarre...yet he got the award. I assume it was like John Wayne's win for "True Grit"...not one of his best performances but given more for his body of work than anything else. I could see the film's technical merits but found it about as enjoyable as chewing on glass.

Dr. Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine) runs an orphanage located at the isolated train stop St. Cloud's, Maine. Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire) was twice rejected in adoptions and grows up to be Larch's apprentice. Larch teaches him everything including performing abortions but he disagrees on abortions. Everybody loves him. In 1943, Wally Worthington (Paul Rudd) and girlfriend Candy Kendall (Charlize Theron) come for an abortion. Homer decides to leave the orphanage with them to everyone's chagrin including Dr. Larch. He works at their apple farm staying in their Cider House with the seasonal workers. Wally goes off to war. Candy and Homer start an affair together. Dr. Larch is setting up for Homer to return as the new doctor in the orphanage as Larch fakes all the medical credentials even without Homer's approval.

The movie floats through many points and many themes in this story. The movie opens with a slow but interesting orphanage story. When Homer leaves the orphanage, the movie diffuses the attention between him and back at the orphanage. It is still interesting but the movie loses some of the little intensity. The romance lacks a certain heat. I don't think Tobey Maguire is a particularly good romantic lead. The story does have a nice slow burn. It's a fascinating dark poetic feel that keeps pulling back the audience. It takes some dark turns. The movie is based on a novel. Like many of these adaptations, it's a tough thing to squeeze a large book into a much shorter form.

If you loved the book then you might be disappointed by the film adaptation of The Cider House Rules done by the author John Irving himself.

Irving condenses the time-span and gets rid of many of the novel's subplots.

Dr Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine) runs an orphanage of abandoned children in an isolated New England town of St Cloud. He raises orphan Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire) as his medical apprentice after he was twice rejected by adoptive parents.

Under Larch's supervision he is in essence an unqualified doctor. Wells also reluctantly performs abortions. Larch carries out the abortions because the alternative for the women is much worse with dangerous backstreet abortions.

In 1943, Wally Worthington (Paul Rudd) and girlfriend Candy Kendall (Charlize Theron) come for an abortion, Wally is a soldier. Homer is unable to serve in the war because of his weak heart decided he wants to experience the world and leaves with them even though he is popular at the orphanage and Dr Larch treats him like a son.

Homer works at the Worthington's apple farm staying in their Cider House with the seasonal workers who are mainly black and illiterate. The workers never realised the rules posted in the Cider House as no one told them about it or explained it to them. They certainly could not read it.

Wally goes off to war and soon Candy and Homer begin a passionate affair. Back at the orphanage the staff hope he will return soon he regularly writes letters to them. Dr Larch sets up fake qualifications in order to pave way for Homer's return as the new doctor in the orphanage one day.

The film has a central theme about rules and how they are set and made to follow by those who do not realise that if the people who the rules are for can read them, understand them or know what purpose they are for. This applies to the Cider House rules which is presumably for the worker's safety and the rules against abortion which is more biblical.

Surrounding these issues we have the unwanted kids at the orphanage and the love given to them by Dr Larch and his staff who try to shield them away in this remote part of Maine from the big bad world as best they could. It helps that the kids are sweet, some get adopted, some stay until they grow old enough. A few die because their health is not strong enough.

The film goes to and fro from the orphanage to Homer as he enjoys his life at the orchard and his illicit affair with Candy. He also gets mixed up with the dramas of the workers as one of the women has an unwanted pregnancy. However things take a turn when Wally returns from action paralysed and Dr Larch's health worsens and Homer feels the need to return to the orphanage.

The film is a sweet tale with dark themes which can blind side you with the scenes involving the young kids watching King Kong. It is a film of Homer being protected from the world and discovering it himself the good and the bad.

Caine gives a strong performance as the kindly Dr Larch. An actor who was never good at accents but gives a good New England flavour here. He won his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Tobey Maguire is also excellent as the sweet natured, naive but principled Homer who has the urge to become adventurous.

The film has been much shorn from the novel but is also the sweeter for it.