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Alex is a quiet, brooding man struggling to come to terms
with the death of a hitchhiker killed in his car in a brutal
crash. In the aftermath of this harrowing ordeal, he travels
to meet the dead girl's mother, Linda, a highly functioning
autistic woman. As they each attempt to deal with their losses
in their own distinct ways, Alan strikes up a relationship
with Maggie and finds himself experiencing long-buried depths
of emotion...
Snow
Cake
is an emotionally powerful drama about learning to deal with
the past, taking hold of the present and looking to the future
and the beauty found in the small things in life.
Alex
(Alan
Rickman) finds
his world turned upside down when he begrudgingly picks up
Vivienne (Emily
Hampshire),
a young and spirited hitchhiker. Just as Alex begins to warm
to her, tragedy strikes and Vivienne is killed. Overcome with
guilt and grief, Alex seeks out Vivienne's mother Linda (Sigourney
Weaver),
only to discover that she is autistic with little understanding
of what has happened. Alex feels compelled to help Linda with
the funeral arrangements, in doing so he becomes increasingly
involved in her life discovering the unique and enchanted
world Linda lives in. Their friendship develops and Linda
helps Alex to come to terms with his troubled past.
Alex
also forms a relationship with Linda's sassy neighbour Maggie
(Carrie-Anne
Moss),
and is the object of scrutiny by the local law enforcement
officer Clyde who, besides being jealous of Alex's relationship
with Maggie, believes he's discovered a dark secret in Alex's
life.
This
movie boasts some pretty heavyweight names in the cast. Alan
Rickman, Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss all turn in
fantastic performances, and it's a huge credit to their acting
skills that all of them bring something new to the screen
we've never seen from them before. This cast sucked me in
for the duration of the film. Rickman was Alex, Weaver was
Linda and Moss was Maggie - I can't think of the last movie
I saw where established actors made me forget their previous
roles.
These
is plenty of humour in this movie, although in truth the whole
movie is a bit of a depressing experience - but don't let
that put you off. There are no belly laughs to speak of, the
humour coming more from the bizarre situation Alex finds himself
in, and Linda's attempts to help Alex from being moody by
asking him if he wants to play on her trampoline. Then
there is the attitude of Linda's neighbours who want to help,
but are really just patronising busybodies. A neighbour tells
Alex that she's just trying to help: "I know about autism.
I've seen that film."
Extras
include a Making of featurette (21 minute look behind
the scenes with interviews from all three of the principal
cast and the director); Deleted Scenes (17 minutes
of scenes that really should have been left in the film);
and Theatrical Trailer.
I
have to be honest and say, with the exception of the two McDonald
plugs, all of the deleted scenes should have been left in
the final cut. None of them seem pointless, and in the majority
of cases they actually help to explain things a little better
(like how Linda's parent's found out that Vivienne had been
killed, why Linda thought Maggie was a prostitute, Linda's
bosses sending Linda home when they find out that her daughter
has just been killed) and Alex asking Linda's parents how
Linda managed to have a child.
On
a technical point of view owners of widescreen TVs, who are
also hard of hearing and like the subtitles on the screen,
may find it a problem to view the subtitles as they are not
displayed on the print of the film, but on the black band
underneath. This means that switching your screen display
to 16:9 will result in the loss of the subtitles.
One
of the most touching, and refreshingly honest movies I've
seen in quite some time.
Nick
Smithson
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