If “The English Patient” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” had a child, it would be “Snow Falling on Cedars.”

The film combines a racially biased trial (a la “Mockingbird”) with flashbacks of a passionate affair (a la “English Patient”). The result is clunky, lethargic and wholly unmoving.

The film opens with a ridiculously slow camera move through a late night fog. Finally, we discover a fisherman atop the mast of his fishing boat.

The next morning, the man’s body is discovered, and Japanese-American Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune) is charged with the crime.

Covering the trial for the local newspaper is Ishmael Chambers (Ethan Hawke). Chambers is fixated with Miyamoto’s wife Hatsue (Yuoki Kudoh), whom we learn he has a history with.

As teenagers, Ishmael and Hatsue had a passionate, secretive relationship. Their forbidden love became even more difficult after Pearl Harbor, when anti-Japanese sentiment in the Pugent Sound fishing village reached its peak.

The film follows the progression of the trial, with frequent flashbacks by Chambers, illuminating the nature of his relationship with Hatsue. We see how her mother tears the couple apart with insistence that she date a Japanese boy to her family’s internment during the war.

The courtroom scenes are painfully formulaic, but feature a fine performance from Max Von Sydow as Miyamoto’s defense attorney Nels Gudmundsson. James Cromwell also appears as the stoic Judge Fielding.

Perhaps the film’s greatest weakness lies in the performance of Ethan Hawke, whose Ishmael Chambers is flat and lifeless.

In what is supposed to be a pivotal scene, Chambers visits Gudmundsson, and is accused of being obsessed with Hatsue. Gudmundsson suggests that this all consuming passion is controlling Chambers’ life, but we have seen no indication of this from the way Hawke has played the role.

In fairness, Hawke did not have a lot to work with. He is more or less silent during the courtroom scenes, watching the trial play out before him. Director Scott Hicks seems to believe that he can reveal more about Hawke’s character through long still shots of his face than he can through action.

He is sorely mistaken.

Cinematographer Robert Richardson paints an exquisite portrait of a harsh winter in the pacific northwest. The beauty of the snowfall in the outdoor shots is breathtaking. Inside the courtroom, we feel the cold, wet, sloppiness of winter.

eautiful though the cinematography may be, it is not nearly sufficient to tell a story.

The other crutch Hicks employs is the musical score by James Newton Howard. Rarely, in recent memory, has a score so insulted the intelligence of the audience.

Every pivotal moment in the film is accompanied by an obscene orchestral flourish, as if to make sure nobody missed it. The score is intrusive, and poorly integrated into the movie as a whole.

Along with Richardson’s cinematography, the other bright spot of the film is the performance of Max Von Sydow. He brings a fullness to Gudmundsson that other performances in the film lacked. There is a serenity he brings to this man, nearing his death, that is close to perfection.

“Snow Falling on Cedars” never finds a way to link the present day action with the flashbacks. They split our focus and make it difficult for us to care about either story. There may be something compelling in “Snow Falling on Cedars,” but it would take a lot of looking to find it.

2 Stars