Smilla's Sense of Snow Review

by Michael Redman (mredman AT bvoice DOT com)
April 23rd, 1997
SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW
    A film review by Michael Redman
    Copyright 1997 Michael Redman

*** (out of ****)

Julia Ormond (Smilla) is in her chilly element as a Greenland Inuit loner now residing unhappily in Copenhagen. Her only friend is a young boy who lives in her apartment building. When she finds him dead from a fall from the roof, it is the beginning of a mystery.

The film is heavy in atmospheric mood and engrossing. For the first two-thirds that is. Then things get weird and the movie jumps sideways into an "X-Files" story. The switch from a riddle involving corporate cover-ups (seems to be all the rage) to a science fiction plot is a bit too much to take and the film falls apart at the end.

Wonderful cinematography and settings do their best to keep interest alive and succeed although it would have been nice to have watched the ending to the film that I saw the beginning of.

[This appeared in the 4/24/97 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be reached at [email protected] ]

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