Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997)

Director: Billie August                                 Writer: Ann Biderman
Film Score: Hans Zimmer                           Cinematography: Jörgen Persson
Starring: Julia Ormond, Gabriel Byrne, Richard Harris and Robert Loggia

I remember when Peter Høeg’s novel first came out and was such a big hit. It was not surprise, then, that the book was turned into a film. At the time, however, I had sampled neither but knowing how popular the book had been I had high expectations. Unfortunately I was incredibly disappointed in Smilla's Sense of Snow. It wasn’t the kind of bad that made me want to turn it off instantly, it just fell so incredibly below my expectations that I couldn’t find anything positive to say about it. I have a strong feeling that the audience was split when it was first released and that those who had read the book enjoyed it because they had so much background from the novel to fill in the blanks. But for those, like myself, who hadn’t read the novel, it felt like watching a Cliff’s Notes version of a story where almost all of the character development had been left out.

The story opens with a meteor killing an Inuit fisherman in Greenland. Flash forward to present day Copenhagen and Smilla Jasperson, played by Julia Ormond. She comes home to discover her five-year-old neighbor has died falling off a roof. Neighbor Gabriel Byrne tries to offer her comfort and she is incredibly rude and crude in her dismissal of him. She thinks it’s murder so she goes to ask her father, Robert Loggia, for money, and is just as contemptuous toward him. She begins her investigation by talking to the coroner, Tom Wilkinson, and he gives her some information. She attempts to get a police case opened, but they think it’s an accident and haul her in to blackmail her into stopping by threatening her with solitary confinement, something her Greenlandic heritage would make tortuous for her.

I can see where Høeg was going in his characterization of Smilla, tough, no-nonsense, direct to the point of bluntness, and there is something admirable about it. The biggest problem is none of that is explained. There is absolutely no character development, save that of the police interrogator telling the audience her background when he reads her dossier to her. Gabriel Byrne’s character is just as maddening. A seemingly simpering milquetoast, he somehow manages to be every place she is and saves her in the nick of time on numerous occasions. He is even seen by her talking to the villain, Richard Harris, and yet he manages to talk his way out of it. There is no sense of urgency, though Ormond and Byrne both claim the opposite. And the deus ex machina is working overtime, allowing her access to vital information and helping her escape from the most impossible of predicaments in a way that would make even The Pelican Brief seem realistic.

In the end there just wasn’t enough for me to like. Neither the characters or their motivations are explained, there is a medical mystery with parasites that seems to be nothing more than a red herring, and the finale strains credulity. Smilla’s Sense of Snow seems to me one of those cases where a best-selling novel is either badly translated to film, or incapable of being done so well because of the time constraints. Either way, it was a big disappointment.