3.5/4  The Cider House Rules Quick Review
This is the perfect pro-choice movie. So, naturally, I love it! lol.

2/5 The film lacked focus but radical prochoicers will love it
  by Anne (NJ, USA)
The Cider House Rules has nice cinematography and good acting, but it lacks a coherent plot and focus. Some things explored include the "grey" areas of life and how you can't always live by the rules; abortion; incest; coming of age; a romance between Charlize Theron's character and Tobey Maguire's character; the father/son-type relationship between Tobey Maguire and Michael Caine's character; and creating a family atmosphere in an orphanage. But it was unclear which of these themes was the main focus and how exactly they all connected.

Tobey Maguire's character leaves the orphanage he grew up in in rural Maine to find himself and explore the world. But he only gets as far as an apple farm in Maine, and apparently learns all he needs to know about life from some migrant apple pickers there. This just seems ridiculous to me, as his character barely gets out of his back yard when he's supposed to be striking out on his own and seeing the world.

The film really glorifies abortion as a positive thing, which is a turn-off. Michael Caine's character indicates repeatedly that he thinks the orphans he cares for and supposedly loves would have been better off aborted, which doesn't make sense to me. Charlize Theron's character is not the slightest bit shaken after undergoing her abortion, which again did not ring true. Erykah Badu's character, who was impregnated by her father, also undergoes an abortion, a relatively late-term one. We are supposed to sympathize with abortion in this case, but because it is late-term and her character is so flippant about it, I found myself disgusted.

Although the movie aims to celebrate moral relativism, I think it inadvertently shows the need to live by some rules...



2/5 Cider House Rules
  by C. Wiegman (Texas)
This movie left me thinking that the plot was to lead the viewer to believe that the young man had no future except to follow in the old doctor's footsteps, return to the orphange and perform abortions. I am thowing the DVD away.

1/5 "Cider House" Makes Us Sympathetic With Wickedness
  by E. J. Ludwig (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
This film depicts likeable people caught up in circumstances where it seems not only normal but legitimate for them to lie, commit suicide, commit abortions, engage in incest, commit murder, live a lie (the main character finally "chooses" to go back to his old orphanage and pretend he is a doctor using a fake diploma), betray a close friendship, fornicate,...you name it: everything people shouldn't do is done.
The workers who work seasonally picking apples at an apple orchard in Maine have some rules tacked to their wall which they scorn. Eventually, the rules are thrown in the fire, and the head apple picker says, "The rules were written by people who don't live here; we live here...." This is a metaphor for the movie. All the rules about morality are inherited from others who don't live here on planet Earth in the good old USA now.
Therefore, those rules don't apply. This is the kind of existentialism that traces back to Albert Camus' novel The Stranger where the characters are reacting to circumstances, even the main character who is eventually tried for murder. They are just people caught up in living their lives. Any attempt to judge them by rules or a moral standard is bogus.
The thing about this movie if you just look at it uncritically and enjoy the beautiful scenery, the beautiful looking actors and actresses, and the personalities, all of whom seem superficially likeable and attractive, you might not notice that they have broken every rule in the book, every rule of morality or Judeo-Christian morality, whatever you want to call it. Therefore the movie ultimately makes bad seem good, and I don't recommend it at all. Truly a morally degraded and degrading film.

1/5 Truth in Advertising
  by Loren (Indiana, USA)
With the hope that you will not be mislead as I was, you need to know that this movie is a story about a kindly, old abortionist and his protege.

If you can live with that, it's a good film. If your conscience is troubled with the presentation of a pair of abortionists as "nice guys", you will be put off by the film.

I destroyed my copy.

4/5 3 stars out of 4
  by One-Line Film Reviews (Easton, MD)
The Bottom Line:

The Cider House Rules is a bit meandering but it's an effective and sometimes moving character piece that highlights a wonderful performance by Michael Caine in an all-around solid piece of filmmaking.