The Cider House Rules

The Cider House Rules is a 1999 movie, based on a 1985 novel by John Irving.  It stars Tobey Maguire as Homer, an orphan who becomes the protege for the director of the orphanage, Dr. Wilbur Larch (played by Michael Caine).  Homer is trained to be a Dr. Larch's assistant and helps care for the abandoned children, the delivery of babies, but refuses to take part in the actual performing of the (illegal) abortions that Dr. Lynch sometimes performs.

Homer, as the oldest orphan, is looked up to by all the children and is heavily depended on by all.

He sees an opportunity to go out on his own when a young army officer (Wally) and a girl (Candy) come to see Dr. Larch for an abortion.  He asks Wally if he can catch a ride when they leave and ends up working in Wally's family apple orchard, along with a migrant work crew led by Mr. Rose.

Wally ends up getting orders and leaves for the war, and Homer and Candy end up getting close to each other, eventually falling in love.

They learn that Wally has been shot down and is paralyzed because of encephalitis and will therefore be returning home soon.  Meanwhile, Homer realizes that Rose Rose, Mr. Rose's daughter, has become pregnant and reaches out to help her.  He and Candy discover that the Rose's father is the father of her baby.

Homer realizes that he can help her and ends up performing an abortion in the migrant quarters.  He also realizes that Candy is going to need to take care of Wally when he returns and therefore, he must leave.

As the migrant workers are preparing to leave, Rose runs away.  She stabs her father after he tries to molest her again, and flees.  Mr. Rose ends up dying in the bunkhouse.

Homer receives word that Dr. Larch has died from an accidental overdose of ether (which he seemed to be quite addicted to).  He decides to return to the orphanage to help out and realizes that Dr. Larch lied to him (out of love) about his heart condition, and had also set him up to be his replacement by creating a false record of Homer's medical certifications.

The movie ends with Homer reading to the boys at the orphanage and saying good night to the "Princes of Maine - the Kings of New England" just as Dr. Larch had done each night for years.

The setting of the film was beautiful and the photography of the northeast was breathtaking.

The main  theme of this film was that as much as we'd like our world to be black and white, it's not always that easy.  Homer is opposed to performing abortions, but ends up softening his stance and therefore, becoming more like Dr. Larch, after he comes to believe that it would be better to have them done safely with him rather than in a way that would be more dangerous.

I'm personally totally uncomfortable with this view and would therefore have liked to have things more black and white.


I think another thing I wrestle with was how loving Dr. Larch and his staff were with the children at the orphanage and how they handled adoptions and tried to give children good homes, and yet, under the same roof they were performing abortions.  It seems at first glance to be quite a contradiction.

We also see Dr. Larch breaking all sorts of rules throughout, and yet he comes across as a very loving, caring man.

The quote that sort of rings true throughout the film was stated by Mr. Rose on his deathbed, when he said, "Sometimes, ya gotta break some rules, to put things straight."

Rules were changing all the time throughout the film, just like they sort of do in life.  As much as I want things to be black and white, I acknowledge that much of that is out of my control and we have to somehow figure things out as we go along.