Like many of the men from Cold Mountain, North Carolina, Inman is caught up in the fervour to fight the Confederate cause. Ada is his love, a strong independent woman who promises to keep the candle lit until his victorious return. Increasingly dismayed by the slaughter inflicted by, and upon, both sides, Inman begins the long and hazardous journey back to his good woman, an odyssey populated by a steady stream of often bizarre, and occasionally murderous, unfortunates. "Cold Mountain" is based on Charles Frazier's novel and it's a visually sumptuous adaptation that achieves its heart and soul more from the peripheral characters than the epic love upon which the story hangs.