Cider House Rules, The

Scenarist John Irving invokes the spirit of Charles Dickens for this tale of orphans and underdogs reconstructing the moral imperatives of the lives they found thrust upon them. The story of Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire) and his Artful Dodger-rise to the status of physician at the Maine orphanage in which he grew up constitutes an updating of Dickensian romance that is both deadly serious and generously spirited.