Snow Falling On Cedars

Aroview: The seemingly perfect conjunction of David Guterson's best-selling novel and dir. Hicks (SHINE), results in a technically magnificent, but thoroughly familiar murder-drama set in the Pacific Northwest of America in the 1950s.

Ethan Hawke leads as a WWII war-hero entangled in accusations leveled against a Japanese man who happens to be married to a wartime lover. However, even the presence of Sam Shepard, Max Von Sydow and Youki Kudoh cannot prevent all the sensitively rendered opalescent light falling on a tale that scarcely matches the brilliance of its crafting.