Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)

Director: Scott Hicks

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

The setting is a North Pacific island, nine years after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internment of the island's Japanese-American inhabitants. Restored to an uneasy harmony after the war, the Anglo/Japanese community is polarised once again when a fisherman dies mysteriously and his Japanese childhood friend is charged with murder. The narrative of David Guterson's bestseller is propelled by the characters' memories. While this works well on the page, it doesn't immediately lend itself to cinema, with numerous flashbacks filling in the backstory. The trial is the framework on which the film is hung, inextricably linking the lives of each participant. Local reporter Ishmael Chambers (Hawke) watches from the press gallery, his impartiality threatened by his obsession with the defendant's wife, childhood sweetheart Hatsue (Youki). Meanwhile, anti-Japanese sentiment is rife in some sectors of the population, a rather clumsily drawn bunch of pantomime baddies. As the case progresses it seems to be not the man but his nationality that's on trial. The film may be visually powerful, but no amount of evocative shots can redeem this turgid courtroom drama.

Author: WI 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Scott Hicks

Producer: Harry J Ufland, Ron Bass, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall

Cast: Ethan Hawke, James Cromwell, Richard Jenkins, James Rebhorn, Sam Shepard, Max von Sydow, Youki Kudoh, Rick Yune full cast

Duration: 127 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.