It's rare to see a film this boring. The characters were just plain flat, and the director's penchant for making every single shot a tight, off center close-up made it painful to watch. Not to mention the "arty" shots thrown in like bad non-sequiturs.
Not a single character showed any more life than a cardboard cutout, and the film dragged out about twenty minutes of story into two hours. It pretended to say a lot about race relations, but really was pretty shallow about that, too (unless it's a revelation to you that Japanese-Americans were ill-treated during WWII). Ethan Hawke's character mopes around morosely, unable to let go of a teenage love affair that ended at least eight years before. About halfway through, you'll be screaming, "Get on with it, already." I'll have to assume the book is a lot better, since the movie is completely uninteresting.
Not a single character showed any more life than a cardboard cutout, and the film dragged out about twenty minutes of story into two hours. It pretended to say a lot about race relations, but really was pretty shallow about that, too (unless it's a revelation to you that Japanese-Americans were ill-treated during WWII). Ethan Hawke's character mopes around morosely, unable to let go of a teenage love affair that ended at least eight years before. About halfway through, you'll be screaming, "Get on with it, already." I'll have to assume the book is a lot better, since the movie is completely uninteresting.