Snow Falling on Cedar

Last weekend H and I were looking for something to watch and resorted to Netflix to escape the dismal options on our thousands of cable stations. One of the new movies available for streaming was Snow Falling on Cedars. H remembered that she had liked the book and I remembered hearing good things about the book. We clicked watch.
I should have remembered the near universal rule that good books make lousy movies. (I know there are plenty of exceptions to the rule, but the movie usually takes a lot of liberties with the book.) The movie was terrible. The cinematography was lush, but that was about the only redeeming thing the movie had to offer.
The main problems with the movie were lack of focus, over indulgence, and a bad central performance.
The movie tried to take all of the themes and sub plots from the book and give them all equal billing. In a novel, the author has the space to weave multiple plots and themes into a coherent whole. In a movie, the director is constrained by both the medium and time. Movies rely on show to tell the story and some things are very hard to show. Movies, generally, need to stay under 90 minutes before they become too long. To fit into the constraints a director needs to choose the one plot and theme that has primacy and force the rest into the background. In Snow Falling on Cedar the director tried to have it all and wound up with a mess.
A symptom of the director's lack of focus was an over indulgence when it came to screen time. A lot of time was given to montages and other lingering scenes. They were beautifully shot, but I wasn't looking for a visual spectacle. I wanted to see the plot move forward.
The director was not helped by his actors. Ethan Hawk's portrayal of the protagonist was terrible. I never found his emotional dilemma compelling. Should he be a man or a petulant child? I never got the sense that he had what it took to be a man in the first place. The rest of the cast was also flat. I never believed the racial tension that was the reason for the trial.
Given the major problems with the film, the plot hole driving the story is barely noticeable. I cannot believe that nobody thought to check the lighthouse records as a part of the murder investigation or the defense's inquiry. In a fishing community it seems unlikely that people were ignorant of the fact that the lighthouse listened to and kept records of the radio traffic in the area.
So the movie is crap. If you thought the book was good, don't bother. If you heard the book was good and wanted to see the movie instead of reading the book, don't.