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.
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.