Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that most kids probably won't be interested in this indie drama, which focuses on adults who have troubled pasts -- including a man just released from prison and a woman who has a few "gentleman callers." A third main character is a high-functioning autistic woman, whose behavior may prompt questions from younger viewers. A violent car crash early in the movie results in a passenger's death. There are some brief discussions of sex (nothing graphic) and a post-sex scene showing a couple in bed together. A few uses of "f--k" in anger.
Families can talk about autism's growing visibility in the media -- which has increased as more and more people are diagnosed. How does the movie portray a "high functioning" autistic adult? How is she different from other autistic TV and movie characters (Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, for example, or Sean Penn in I Am Sam)? How does the movie use her as a model of behavior for other damaged adults around her? What other messages does the movie send?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Alex (Alan Rickman) first appears in SNOW CAKE aboard a plane. As he gazes out the window, viewers see the contradiction he embodies -- he's in motion and still at the same time. Just released from prison, Alex is headed to Winnipeg, Ont., for reasons unknown. While driving, he meets charmingly eccentric, purple-haired Vivienne (Emily Hampshire) at a truck stop, whereupon his course is changed.
An aspiring writer, Vivienne sees through Alex's tetchiness, even making him laugh briefly. But then a car accident (not Alex's fault) leaves her dead and him feeling emotionally liable. He heads off to Vivienne's house, where he meets her mother, Linda (Sigourney Weaver), a high-functioning autistic adult who stocks shelves in the local supermarket, loves jumping on her trampoline, and accepts Vivienne's death without question.
It bothers Alex that Linda shows more upset when he walks into her kitchen without permission than when she talks about her lost daughter, but Linda -- whose last name is, significantly, "Freeman" -- proves to be one of those movie-style models of childlike innocence and purity of feeling. When Linda says, "I won't see Vivienne again. You won't see Vivienne again... We all have to get over it," Alex predictably shakes his head in wonder, realizing the profundity of her words while clinging to his own sense of wisdom, responsibility (he's agreed to stay a week at Linda's to look after funeral arrangements), and maturity. Being an adult, you know, means feeling bad about stuff.
Alex finds a different kind of solace in Linda's next-door neighbor, Maggie (Carrie-Anne Moss), who's another type of "free spirit" -- a divorcee who's happy to have sex without commitment. When Alex realizes that Maggie is not, as Linda has asserted, a prostitute, he achieves another insight: Some ambiguities, which aren't understood by the black-or-white-thinking Linda, are worth savoring. His affair with Maggie offers another sort of "purity," with no obligations or expectations, only generosity.
All of these clichés tend to overwhelm the film's more interesting questions about the pressures of social connections and conventions. With too much plinky piano music and a scene that purports to show Linda's point of view as she dances with the dead Vivienne against an imaginary white background, Snow Cake is at once too obvious and too earnest.
Fans might want to see House of Cards (about an autistic child), I Am Sam, CNN's documentary Autism is a World, or the TV show The Shield, in which protagonist Vic Mackey has two autistic children.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentJoke about "gay" executive; a couple of conversations about a woman presumed to be a prostitute (she's referred to as a "hooker"); some conversation about sex (when to have it); post-sex scene of couple lying in bed. |
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ViolenceEarly car accident is very jarring (crash, car flips, man emerges bloody and dazed, passenger is killed off screen); repeated, cryptic conversations about a man's prison term (he describes his crime later in the film); brief description of a man's son killed by a drunk driver. |
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LanguageAt least five uses of "f--k," plus "s--t" and "hooker." |
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Social BehaviorAn ex-convict talks about his crime; an autistic woman models "living in the present" provincial townspeople try their best not to judge unusual behavior. |
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CommercialismDiet Coke, McDonalds, Scrabble, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoBrief wine drinking during a romantic dinner. |
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