The number of successful Stephen King adaptations can be counted on the fingers of one mangled hand, but Australian director Scott Hicks probably thought this property would be a snap after the poor reception of his masterful rendition of Snow Falling on Cedars. With its subtle insight into the layered nature of memory and time, Hearts remains a definitive Hicks outing, but the worst of King seeps through in the film's occasional bathos and misogyny. Bobby (David Morse), a middle-aged photographer, gets a posthumous gift from a childhood pal that draws him into a prolonged flashback to 1960, when drifter Ted (Anthony Hopkins) took lodging with the widowed mother (Hope Davis) of 11-year-old Bobby (Anton Yelchin). Played by Hopkins with aching grace, Ted proves a benevolent enigma, demonstrating powers of precognition, tolerance, and good taste in literature, not to mention a paranoid fear of men in black suits who look like extras in The Matrix. Is he a time traveler? An escapee from an FBI paranormal program? A nut? David's mom, unfortunately, is no mystery: a whining shrew and scapegoat who comes close to breaking Hearts. At the Entertainment, Flagship, Hoyts Providence 16, Opera House, and Showcase cinemas.