Cider House Rules

Cider House Rules is about an orphan, Homer, who lives at an orphanage having been returned by foster parents twice.  The director of the orphanage, Dr. Wilbur Larch, is an ether addicted abortionist who teaches Homer how to perform abortions.  Homer never goes to high school so he is forced to learn to perform abortions.  He doesn’t believe in abortions though so he runs away with a couple that came to Larch for an abortion.  He works on their apple farm with Arthur’s crew, Arthur is another worker.  Arthur rapes and impregnates is daughter Rose who comes to Homer to get an abortion.  Although Homer doesn’t agree with abortion he decides that in Rose’s case he will do one.  After this Rose decides to run assay, Arthur, her father, goes to say good bye; when she sees him she stabs him and fleas.  Homer comes upon Arthur and his dying wish is that he tells the police that the cause of death was suicide.  Homer then returns to the orphanage to find out that Larch has died, but Larch adjusted Homers medical records so that he couldn’t go to war and also that he adjusted his educational records so that he would be next in line to run the orphanage. 

            This movie was intriguing because of the concepts it dealt with.  Abortion is a hot topic today and this movie gave a view of it that others don’t.  It showed how people struggle with tough decisions and how tough some people’s lives are.  The things that I noticed in this film were the acting and the tough moral decisions that each character had to make. 

            The acting was great in this movie; they all convinced me that their part was an actual part in a story going on.  Homer was in a tough position in multiple spots like when he decided to run away from the orphanage and at the apple farm but he kept his composure showing confidence in his job.  Rose’s acting in the film was also good because she had to show worry, anger, and a large amount of stress. I believe that she did a good job convincing the audience that she was in a troubling time in her life.  The acting helped bring the film together as a whole, it the acting was lacking the film would have a large hole in it that could not have been filled by anything else. 

            The tough decisions that people were put in also helped the movie as a whole.  It kept the movie interesting and fed it well.  When Homer was put into the situation with deciding whether to be an abortionist whether or not he agreed with it brought stress to the movie because it is a popular topic that in today’s world is hard to deal with.  Rose was in a tough situation as well because she was raped and impregnated by her own father, she then was forced to decide whether an abortion was a good idea.  Homer ended up putting his own moral fibers aside in order to help Rose. 

            The movie altogether was good.  Some aspects really helped the movie as a whole be what it is.  I think the topics that they covered in the movie were an important part of the movie as a whole because without interesting topics there isn’t anything to be interested in.  The whole thing was constructed well in order to make a successful popular movie.