Well this was a little too "mysterious" for me as in I didn't ever have a clear idea of the characters or their motivation. Dry, art-housie and kinda boring despite a great cast. Good performances though and refreshing location as this takes place in Denmark and Greenland.I like Julie Ormond and she does a decent job as 'Smilla' a half Inuit woman living in Copenhagen who begins to suspect that the neighbour boy she'd befriended was murdered after his suspicious "fall" from the roof of their apartment building. She follows the clues all the way back to her native home of Greenland, has some action scenes and an awkward romance with Gabriel Byrne before uncovering a sci-fi-ish conspiracy. 8/16/14

I really liked the main characters - a strong but seemingly cold-hearted woman and her strange neighbor who manages to be attractive and pitiful at the same time. One of the rare movies in which I was as much interested in the characters and their development as in the story line.Unfortunately half-way through the movie the events become more and more unbelievable and convoluted. People get killed, stuff explodes and our half-Inuit heroine goes through it like Lara Croft, with the difference that she keeps surviving not by skill or guns but by pure chance. The ending seems taken from an 80's James Bond movie. Disappointing for those of us who are not fond of evil scientist / mysterious forces clichés.

'Smilla's sense of snow' introduces us to Smilla Jasperson (played convincingly by Julia Ormond) a young laboratory assistant working at the University hospital in Copenhagen. Smilla appears initially to be well blended into the workplace and life of the city but soon we realize that she is not a city person; she has grown up in the vast and snow-covered plains of Greenland with her Inuit mother and moved to Copenhagen after her mother's death.Smilla one day after returning from work witnesses the fatal fall of a young Inuit boy falling from a terrace. The police arrives just after her and question her about the event. Despite being in a state of shock she manages to look at the scene and from the footprints on the snow she believes that the death was not accidental: the boy was pushed or nudged to jump under a threat. From that day on Smilla's life will change. She is determined to find out the truth seeking initially help from her father (who prepares to marry again) and then from her neighbor, the enigmatic mechanic played by (the always good) Gabriel Byrne.'Smilla's sense of snow' is a very good thriller and Smilla is a very interesting heroine. We understand from the beginning that she does not feel comfortable in the city but at the same time tries to integrate without losing her Inuit identity. She seems fragile but her 'sense of snow' guides her to find the killer and her new identity. For her the death of the Inuit boy (that we get to know through a number of flashbacks) appears to signify the loss of her own innocence in a new world of norms and rules that she does not feel comfortable to abide by. The film is a well-crafted thriller from a good director (Bille August) with beautiful images of Copenhagen and the Arctic. A 8/10 from me.

This film starts off promisingly with a dazzling display of nature at its most powerful. However, the extreme unlikeliness of the plot makes this movie a bit of a joke.I'll admit that Julia Ormand's performance is strong, and, for me, that Gabriel Bryne can never do any wrong. The premise about an innocent young boy getting killed is genuinely heartbreaking.However, the connection between the asteroid and the rest of this saga isn't clarified until the end, and one must put up with far too much ponderous dialog to make it worth the wait. (Why was it necessary to show repeated spats between Smilla and her stepmother? Who the hell cared?) The Gabriel Byrne character saves Smilla's butt so many times he practically personifies the literary device "deus ex machina." (OK, we get it!)Was this film intended for grown-ups or for the teenage boys who read superhero comics?