Denmark, Germany, Sweden · 1997
Rated R · 2h 1m
Director Bille August
Starring Julia Ormond, Gabriel Byrne, Richard Harris, Jim Broadbent
Genre Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
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Smilla Jaspersen, half Danish, half Greenlander, attempts to understand the death of a small boy who falls from the roof of her apartment building. Suspecting wrongdoing, Smilla uncovers a trail of clues leading towards a secretive corporation that has made several mysterious expeditions to Greenland. Scenes from the film were shot in Copenhagen and western Greenland. The film was entered into the 47th Berlin International Film Festival, where director Bille August was nominated for the Golden Bear.
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The matter-of-fact way in which the story is presented serves as a constant reminder of how implausible the whole thing is. Add to this the single expression Ormond and Byrne are allowed throughout the film, and you're left with one more weak, confusing, ignorable movie that embarrasses its source.
San Francisco Examiner by Barbara Shulgasser
This is the kind of story that might have been interesting had it not been populated with dreary characters played by actors who were clearly coached to be as dull as possible.
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
The suspense is laughably absent.
The New York Times by Elvis Mitchell
This story has now been gracefully adapted by Bille August into a sleek, good-looking film that captures the book's peculiar fascination.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
It is involving and entertaining, and features an intriguing, independent heroine.
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
By the end Smilla has become a formulaic action hero--equally at home in an evening dress and blue jeans--not a marginalized victim seeking to uncover the source of her wound, and the film collapses around her like glaciers of melting ice.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rick Groen
Regresses into a lame action-thriller.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Here is a movie so absorbing, so atmospheric, so suspenseful and so dumb, that it proves my point: The subject matter doesn't matter in a movie nearly as much as mood, tone and style.
San Francisco Chronicle by Ruthe Stein
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