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Snow Falling on Cedars

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 12 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Scott Hicks
Ronald Bass
David Guterson (novel)
Directed by: Scott Hicks
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 22, 1999
DVD: May 30, 2000
Running Time: 126 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for disturbing images, sensuality and brief strong language
Starring Ethan Hawke, James Cromwell, Richard Jenkins, and Sam Shepard
Set against the backdrop of the national crisis that erupted following Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor, this is an elegiac, multi-layered exploration of memory, love and reconciliation on an island in the Pacific Northwest. (Universal Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
TNT RoughCut Christopher Brandon
Scott Hicks adapts David Guterson's best-selling novel as if it was poetry.
Boston Globe Jay Carr
The kind of richly layered film that Hollywood seldom attempts, much less brings off. But it's more than brought off here in grand, solid style and beautifully crafted detail.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Reflective, deliberate, building gradually to a climax that left me touched.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Flawed, but fascinating, this somber adaptation of David Guterson's award-winning novel is sometimes sluggish and difficult to follow, but it's also unexpectedly poetic.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
As good as it is in many ways, the film is not as emotionally gripping as it should be, and comes off as a rather predictable liberal statement.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Fails to completely engage the viewer at the basic level of story.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Larry Terenzi
Hicks is far less interested in resolving dramatic conflicts than in framing shots.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
As cosmetically sanitized revisions of history go: This is as good as it gets.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Movies made from serious novels are often ridiculed as unworthy of their sources, but this one may be too worthy -- too reverent, too showy, too earnest.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
For all the beauty it struggles to bring forth, Snow Falling on Cedars is painfully prosaic.
Read Full Review >Film.com Robert Horton
Not a crowd-pleasing, or even audience-oriented, movie; it's a two-hour-plus mood piece.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Has to fight to hold our attention and it doesn't always succeed.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
A prettily photographed yet morbidly gloomy movie.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Ultimately there's something too measured, too controlled in his film.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Too chilly and distanced to build the emotional impact it would like to have.
Read Full Review >USA Today Staff [Not Credited]
Compelling almost in spite of itself, thanks to the impressionistic imagery of cinematographer Robert Richardson.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Exceedingly blurred rendering of a simply told, artful novel.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Never transports you to another place and time, as it intends to.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
This badly muddled adaptation of a complex novel chases after Guterson's many skeins and themes with no unifying principle in mind.
Read Full Review >Film.com Sean Means
You just watch one carefully constructed but emotionally vacant image piled up on another - sometimes with regard to an overall effect, but often just for the sake of style over substance.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
The year's most beautiful movie -- and surely one of the dullest.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly John Patterson
The narrative chronology is so heavily hacked about, its tenses so addled and the material so thinly spread across so many characters, one can scarcely keep it straight in one's head without going cross-eyed.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Admirably high-minded and visually gorgeous but fatally anesthetized by its own grandiosity.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Dennis Lim
Trying to act in this movie is like trying to stand upright in a blizzard.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
All shots and no scenes, which is nice for a picture book but deadly for drama.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Loaded with facile social themes, opaque characters, pointlessly intricate flashbacks, and inflated technique.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday
Ultimately groans under the weight of its own quiet gorgeousness.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 12 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Luna M. gave it a4:
The scattered fragments of the story are overwhelmed by the film's weighty, somber, pretentious cinematography and score. Visually poetic and lovingly photographed. But one ponderously slow scene follows another. Snippets of same are then repeated through flashbacks. Over-use of crying babies to dramatize bad news. Plenty of passion and talent were behind the making of this movie, but for me it was too self-conscious, gloomy and (watch as the rain drips drips drips) SLOW.
Susan F. gave it a10:
Mesmerizing film- beautifully done - provacative and above all heart wrenching movie.
Luke G. gave it a 10:
David Guterson's debut novel was a mirror image to this performance, Exquisitely directed! Scott Hicks you shall be very proud!
Abel V. gave it a 10:
Deciding to have a calm night a couple of weeks after i broke-up with someone special to me...I happen to run into this movie at my local movie-renting place. Snow Falling on Cedars is the most heartfelt, touching, powerfull, compelling, moving movie I have ever seen!! The music is haunting, the story is heartfelt and beautiful, I recomend it to any and everyone. And in my 'own' rating scale of 1 to 10 it gets an 11! Astonishing and amazing...beautiful work by director: Scott Hicks.
Aurora B. gave it a 10:
A beautiful movie that tugs at the heart, and shows that first loves last forever...it was just amazing.
Ryan M. gave it an 8:
Hypnotically enthralling.
