Sexylocher Masterful Movie

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Motompa Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

jwiley-86292 This film is to autism what The Fault in Our Stars is to romance, and I hated TFIOS.I chose to watch this film because Weaver's character and I have something in common. . . but in the end, very little in common. I'm fully aware that autistic people are often too different from each other to be summed up in one character, and that people like Linda are definitely out there, but I'd hoped she would turn out to be more normal. I'm half as old as Linda is in the movie, maybe not even that, and I can do all kinds of things she can't do. I'd be fine with Alan Rickman inspecting my kitchen. . . or other things. Don't get me wrong, I have inexplicable nitpicks just like she does, but whereas she has a near-meltdown if there's a stain to clean up, I react to violations of my nitpicks with annoyance at most. The movie got the "Neat freak" part right, though. However, from what I've read, autistic people usually have more complex interests than snow and Beanie Babies. And superheroes are WAY too mainstream as a nerd passion. Bottom line: It would be nice to see more mature, well-adjusted autistics on film. Seriously, Linda is depressingly thickheaded. Okay, I won't make this whole review a comparison between myself and her. I need to give Snow Cake some credit. It's not like the film is poorly written or acted (even though Linda creeps me out.) This story has great potential in theory. The early scenes with Alex and Vivienne did a good job drawing me in, and the scenes lit in red are a sumptuous touch. Still, Alex's affair with Carrie-Ann Moss' character rubbed me the wrong way. It was like watching yourself get cheated on. I know I'm being narcissistic, but because Snow Cake had the chance to speak to me on such an intimate level, it demands to be compared to the real thing. It could have been just for me, but wasn't, so I feel sad for everyone involved, because their hearts were in the right place. If it feels like something YOU have lived through, though, I don't want to take that from you.

Turfseer Snow Cake is a Canadian film which had many more favorable reviews than negative ones. I believe there is little argument that it was Sigourney Weaver's performance that drew people to the film, resulting in all the accolades. And I would agree that the single most compelling aspect of the film is the multi-layered character that Weaver plays: 'Linda', a fully functioning adult autistic woman. Linda seemed pretty believable to me as Weaver captures both the childlike simplicity of the character as well as the torment. The screenwriter, Angela Pell, certainly knows something about autism, since she raised an autistic son.What's fascinating about Linda is that her emotional life is so bifurcated. On one hand, she's a simple child who is intimately connected to nature—the snow cake symbolizing the connection she feels to the earth—perhaps her greatest joy is to experience the snow melting in her mouth. But on the other hand, as an adult, she's unable to let herself be intimate with anyone who seeks to get close to her. She creates boundaries, such as not allowing anyone into her kitchen; and like all those who suffer from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, resorts to maintaining order in the environment, in order to avoid contact with those who attempt to form a relationship with her. Even when she allows someone to touch her (when, for example, she asks Alex to 'hug' her), she insists that he wrap his arms around her without using his hands. There is an additional aspect that makes Linda such a rich character: her creativity. One of the most enjoyable moments in the film is when she plays scrabble with Alex, using only made-up words.Vivienne, Linda's daughter, is also another fascinating character who we only meet briefly at the beginning of the film as she's soon killed in the accident. Rather than viewing Vivienne as having been "damaged" by the lack of a 'normal' mother figure, she's actually a young woman who's learned to cope in the face of a difficult upbringing. What's more, she's incorporated the positive, creative aspects of her mother's personality that makes her so endearing. Another very powerful moment in the film, is the father's eulogy of Vivienne, in which he conveys the strength of her character and the enormous sense of loss as a result of her tragic death.Pell is less successful with the other characters in her film. Alex is also supposed to be 'damaged goods' as we eventually learn of his back story: he killed the man responsible for the death of the son he was on his way to meet for the first time. It's obvious why Pell has the emotionally stunted Alex on his way to a first meeting and not having met the son before: by depriving Alex of meeting the son, he loses his mind and kills the victim (a drunk driver) in a fit of rage. I wanted to find out more about Alex—instead , he's pretty much depicted as a one-note character, severely depressed due to his earlier loss of control as well as guilt over the death of Vivienne.Alex overcomes his depression by reaching out and helping Linda. But he also moves forward through his relationship with Maggie, perhaps the least convincing character in the film. I just didn't get why Maggie would jump into bed so fast with Alex or why she's attracted to him at all. After all, it's not like she hasn't had other men in her life. What's more, she has no idea who this Alex character is. On the surface, it's obvious he's depressed. Maggie is the artificial love interest that also serves as an impetus to repair Alex's damaged soul. Indie dramas are littered with these saintly characters with their perennial 'hearts of gold'!Aside from the saintly Maggie and Alex, along with Linda's loving parents, most of the rest of the townspeople come off as wholly unsympathetic as they feign tolerance and sympathy for Linda but behind her back secretly have contempt for her. In one of the deleted scenes on the DVD, a woman comes up to Alex in a McDonald's and compliments Alex on the good job he's been doing with her; Alex turns around and slyly tells the woman that Linda is his wife! I'm not sure why the scene was deleted but perhaps the director sensed that it was too didactic: the 'moral' Alex must teach a lesson to one of the uncaring townspeople. The idea of a collective group of uncaring townspeople as the films' collective 'antagonist' doesn't work precisely people are much more complicated and nuanced as the film's scenarist suggests.This might seem odd, but the thing that bothered me most about 'Snow Cake' is the screenwriter's failure to explain the nature of the accident. Why is everything left so vague when the truck driver piles into Alex and Vivienne? Wouldn't the circumstances of the accident have been broadcast on the nightly news? By leaving the nature of the accident vague, this allows Alex to act with hostility toward the truck driver (barring him from bringing the flowers to Linda). But had Alex knew what really happened, he couldn't have used that as an excuse to be angry with the truck driver. The confrontation between the two seems forced and sets up the sentimental scene in the church where Alex 'forgives' the driver (which he has no right to do, since presumably the death of Vivienne was an accident!).As a psychological portrait of a fully functioning adult autistic woman and her quirky but vibrant teenage daughter, Snow Cake hits the mark. But most of the rest of the Snow Cake characters, particularly Maggie and Alex, never rise above the level of caricature. For all its well-meaning sensitivity, Snow Cake is more a fairy tale than a story that could actually happen in real life.

Rox73 I don't think I have ever seen a bad movie with those two wonderful actors in it.I'm not going to say anything about the plot, people can read that on the overview page. What I want to say about it is that the message comes through loud and clear; that you usually learn a valuable life lesson when you least expect it, from the people you least expect it from - in this case that life can be so amazingly beautiful when you learn how to accept people as they are. This is a very rare quality that is not found often enough in people in my opinion. So thank you to everyone who made this inspiring film.Recommended times ten!

sddavis63 In reviewing this movie, the first thing that has to be mentioned are the great performances from the two leads: Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman. Weaver was absolutely unbelievable as Linda Freeman, a woman suffering from autism who is confronted by her daughter's death in a car accident, while Rickman was almost as good (almost because he has a less demanding role) as Alex Hughes (the man who was driving the car in which Linda's daughter was killed.) After the accident, Alex takes it upon himself to visit Linda, and the movie basically follows the relationship the two develop. That, mind you, may be the movie's greatest weakness. I didn't really see either purpose or closure to this. Yes, we watch the relationship evolve, but personally I didn't think either Linda or Alex ever really moved on. I'm not sure after watching this what I wanted them to do, but everything in the end seemed so unresolved. Yes, I learned a lot about living with autism - and Weaver apparently researched the role studiously - but I still kept wondering where this was going and I never really got an answer.Having said that, this was still an enjoyable movie because of Weaver and Rickman, although I confess that I did wonder why - in a Canadian/British production - the need was felt to cast an American actress in the lead role? I appreciated the setting of the movie. Having lived a few years in Northern Ontario, the "feel" seemed realistic, with perhaps the one exception being the reaction of the neighbours to Linda dancing at Vivienne's wake. The movie seemed to portray their disapproval, whereas - knowing these types of communities - I believe the townsfolk would be far more understanding of Linda's "differences." That aside, I would still highly recommend this movie. It features some of the best acting you'll find anywhere. 7/10