My mother always used to say “Bad things can happen but it is how you deal with it that determines the strength of your character.” Nowhere is this better demonstrated in Marc Evans latest film.
Snow Cake is a film that celebrates the power storytelling, telling a beautiful story that leaves an impression long after it’s told. It celebrates the fragility and the strength of the human condition and capacity for those who have been hurt to find solace in life’s unexpected lessons.
An uplifting, touching and inspiring story on the destructive power of silence, guilt and grief and how these wounds can be healed through the power of acceptance, understanding, friendship and love.
Alex Hughes (Alan Rickman) is a man haunted by his past. After a horrific car accident which kills 19-year-old Vivienne, a hitch hiker who Alex reluctantly offers a lift to, Alex feels compelled to make his peace with Vivienne’s mother, Linda. He is startled to discover that Linda (Sigourney Weaver) is autistic and finds himself in the unlikely position of embarking on a friendship that challenges the way he perceives himself, his past and the world around him.
The reviews have been glowering for this Canadian film, based on Angela Pell’s first film script, and with good reason. The acting is superb – Rickman and Weaver at their finest – and the script is full of delicate twists and turns that is successfully realised by Director Marc Evans. Pell has succeeded in creating a world of tense, repressed and curious characters - none more riveting than Alex Hughes himself - that is beautifully told by Evans in an intimate, heart-felt and poignant way with the aid of music, cinematography and cast of memorable actors. The cinematography moves skilfully between creating an atmosphere that is terrifying and suspenseful then reflective, with tweaks of humour in-between. The film is full of delightful surprises, witty lines delivered in an irreverent, serious and sincere manner by Weaver as Linda. “Have you ever had an orgasm?” Linda innocently asks Alex by way of explaining the sensation of the taste of snow in her mouth. “Vivienne described it to me once. It sounds like an inferior version of what I feel when I have a mouthful of snow.”
This film will wrench your heart and give you new hope. While Alex is shown to be unmanned by his fear, guilt and grief for his role in the accidental death of Vivienne, Linda is shown by contrast to have hidden reserves of acceptance, strength and wisdom. Whereas everyone treats Linda like a child, Alex treats Linda like an equal and is gifted by the insights Linda shares with him of the way she views the world.
For example in a beautifully orchestrated scene Linda and Alex are playing comic book word scrabble where you can create any word you like but you need to give an example of the word in a sentence. Linda wins hands down with the word “Dazlious”.
“And your example?” Alex demands. Linda takes off her glasses and considers Alex before giving him this stunning and beautifully memorable example.
“Mr Fantastic, from the Fantastic Four, he has got arms of elastic so that they can stretch for 2 maybe 300 miles. He has been imprisoned in a cave for seven days with no water, no light and on the eighth day he manages use his arms to loosen the top, to push the top of the cave...and then there is a white yellow light and there is a stillness (pause) and in the few minutes he has got before his captor the evil Doctor Doom returns he stops for a moment...and all he can hear is his own breathing...and he is totally overwhelmed at how big the world is and how small he is...and as he turns around he says very quietly, so no-one can hear him – he says ‘Dazlious’.”
See the film clip on YouTube here.
Evans succeeds in imparting the message to the audience that courage can be found in some of the most hard-to-find places; all you need to do is have faith.
Now playing in cinemas.
Written by Biwa Kwan
