Cold Mountain (North Carolina) settlement on the real-life mountain. The peak is accessible only by hiking a spur of the strenuous Art Loeb Trail. A major motion picture based on the novel was distributed by Miramax Films in 2003. The movie was actually filmed in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. A Miramax Films spokesperson cited higher production costs however director Anthony Minghella had said that the lack of old-growth forests and period buildings as well as the lack of dependable snowfall were the primary reasons he chose not to film in Western North Carolina. A 2015 opera production followed. "Cold Mountain Hunter" a 2004
The Talented Mr. Ripley (film) Berardinelli gave the film two and a half stars out of four, calling it "a solid adaptation" that "will hold a viewer's attention", but criticized "Damon's weak performance" and "a running time that's about 15 minutes too long." Berardinelli compared the film unfavorably with the previous adaptation, "Purple Noon", which he gave four stars. He wrote, "The remake went back to the source material, Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley". The result, while arguably truer to the events of Highsmith's book, is vastly inferior. To say it suffers by comparison to "Purple Noon" is an understatement. Almost every aspect of