Smilla's Sense of Snow

God, I wanted this movie to be good. Peter Hoeg's novel is so hypnotic, with such a cool aura about it, that it seemed tailor-made for the screen. Truth is, it's a halfway successful venture, featuring a brilliant character in Smilla (played ferociously by Julia Ormand) stuck with some average dialogue and questionable motivations.

When a small Greenlandic boy falls off a roof, Smilla knows it wasn't an accident and sets out to find why someone would be so cruel. She uncovers a web of lies spun by a mining company, which in turn leads to an almost supernatural conclusion in the sparse tundra. Something about the movie never rings true, however (when Smilla's dad asks her why she is doing this, she replies that it's a "New Year's resolution..."), and the film's denouement seems more like a silly James Bond flick than the spiritual story hinted at in the beginning. Even the gorgeous photography (which looks a little like the desert sequences in "The English Patient," only about 100 degrees colder) can't save the film from being emotionally hollow and ultimately unsatisfying.

—Ian Williams

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