Snow Falling on Cedars

(Universal)

On the surface a courtroom drama set in the Pacific Northwest shortly after World War II, Scott Hicks's adaptation of the David Guterson bestseller is also an ambitious, mostly successful attempt to prevail over mainstream movie conventions and expectations. Set in 1950 on an island off the Washington coast, the story begins when fisherman Carl Heine (Eric Thal) is found murdered and Japanese-American Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune) is arrested for the crime. He's defended by the doddering but shrewd barrister Nels Gudmundsson (Max von Sydow in one of the finest performances of the year). Watching the proceedings is Ishmael (Ethan Hawke), an embittered veteran (he lost an arm) who runs the local paper; and it turns out that he and Kazuo's wife, Hatsue, were childhood sweethearts. Hicks plunges beneath the surface of the story with multi-layered montages, interweaving points of view, and fluid, interlocking flashbacks; the central montage involving a letter read at three different times melds a grotesque beach landing in the Pacific, innocent love between children, and racist rage into an overwhelming five minutes that accomplishes everything Terrence Malick attempted in The Thin Red Line. Cedars aspires to shed a light on the reality behind glossy conventions and clichés, on how people hate and love and remember.