Scott Hicks adapts David Guterson's best-selling novel as if it was poetry.

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.

Uusually satisfying in the way it unfolds.

Reflective, deliberate, building gradually to a climax that left me touched.

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.

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.

Fails to completely engage the viewer at the basic level of story.

Hicks is far less interested in resolving dramatic conflicts than in framing shots.

As cosmetically sanitized revisions of history go: This is as good as it gets.

Essentially a liberal soap opera.

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.

For all the beauty it struggles to bring forth, Snow Falling on Cedars is painfully prosaic.

Not a crowd-pleasing, or even audience-oriented, movie; it's a two-hour-plus mood piece.

Has to fight to hold our attention and it doesn't always succeed.