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Snow Falling on Cedars
Universal Pictures

Snow Falling on Cedars reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 44 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
5.9 out of 10
based on 31 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA 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)


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Scott Hicks
Ronald Bass
David Guterson (novel)
 
DIRECTED BY: Scott Hicks  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: May 30, 2000 
Video: May 30, 2000 
Theatrical: December 22, 1999 
RUNNING TIME: 126 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

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...

95
TNT RoughCut Christopher Brandon
Scott Hicks adapts David Guterson's best-selling novel as if it was poetry.
88
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
88
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Uusually satisfying in the way it unfolds.
Read Full Review
75
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Reflective, deliberate, building gradually to a climax that left me touched.
Read Full Review
70
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
67
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
67
Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Fails to completely engage the viewer at the basic level of story.
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62
Mr. Showbiz Larry Terenzi
Hicks is far less interested in resolving dramatic conflicts than in framing shots.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
As cosmetically sanitized revisions of history go: This is as good as it gets.
Read Full Review
50
Time Richard Schickel
Essentially a liberal soap opera.
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50
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
50
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
For all the beauty it struggles to bring forth, Snow Falling on Cedars is painfully prosaic.
Read Full Review
50
Film.com Robert Horton
Not a crowd-pleasing, or even audience-oriented, movie; it's a two-hour-plus mood piece.
Read Full Review
50
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Has to fight to hold our attention and it doesn't always succeed.
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50
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
A prettily photographed yet morbidly gloomy movie.
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50
San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Ultimately there's something too measured, too controlled in his film.
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50
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Too chilly and distanced to build the emotional impact it would like to have.
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50
USA Today Staff [Not Credited]
Compelling almost in spite of itself, thanks to the impressionistic imagery of cinematographer Robert Richardson.
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50
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Exceedingly blurred rendering of a simply told, artful novel.
Read Full Review
40
Variety Todd McCarthy
Impeccably crafted but dramatically dull.
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40
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Never transports you to another place and time, as it intends to.
Read Full Review
40
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
40
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
38
New York Post Lou Lumenick
The year's most beautiful movie -- and surely one of the dullest.
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30
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
30
The New York Times Stephen Holden
Admirably high-minded and visually gorgeous but fatally anesthetized by its own grandiosity.
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30
Village Voice Dennis Lim
Trying to act in this movie is like trying to stand upright in a blizzard.
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30
Newsweek David Ansen
All shots and no scenes, which is nice for a picture book but deadly for drama.
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30
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Loaded with facile social themes, opaque characters, pointlessly intricate flashbacks, and inflated technique.
Read Full Review
25
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Looks exquisite, but don't bother digging deeper.
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25
Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday
Ultimately groans under the weight of its own quiet gorgeousness.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 5.9 (out of 10) based on 11 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.

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