“Perhaps not the greatest thriller of all time, but a highly entertaining film with some decent performances that I’d likely watch a sequel to”
As normal, I’m beginning with a TL;DR version of this review, which summaries my thoughts as above. I’m aware that the critical reviews of this film are less than favourable, and it’s Rotten Tomatoes score is horribly low, but I don’t think it deserves all the criticism it’s gotten so far. It’s by no means a terrible film. I’ve seen far, far worse this year. It may not be the most original film ever created, and there were perhaps a few areas where things could potentially be improved, but the plot was decent enough, the actors were good enough, and the biggest criticism I have of the film is just to do with the coincidence of a few of the events.
That said, if this was meant to launch a film franchise based on the series of books by the same author then it probably could have done a slightly better job. Then again, it perhaps could have been a lot worse as well. It’s unlikely that it will launch a series of films now, unless the producers and investors have more faith in it than the critics did, but I feel like there was enough there with this film that a sequel could be a possibility, especially if Fassbender returns to the leading role. With the story being what it was, and a few other criticisms I have, I did feel like if they want to make this into a regular thing then perhaps the world of cinema isn’t the best place to launch a franchise like this one. Perhaps they should be looking to launch it on the small screen, rather than the big screen, as I can’t help but feel like a few multi-part mini-series style shows would suit this a lot more than the big feature film format. I doubt they could get as big of a cast to start in a TV adaptation of course, but then if they could then I have no doubt a sequel on the small screen (or on Netflix, perhaps) would be far better received. With that said, the film was enjoyable enough, it took you on a journey that wasn’t overly predictable, and all in all I left the cinema having enjoyed the film, so take that for what you will.
The Setup
The film begins with an introduction to a young child and his mother, along with a local policeman who it appears is the boy’s father. He’s highly abusive to the mother, slapping her when the son gets a history question wrong and blaming her for his wrong answers, believing she should have worked harder with him. Despite slapping her around it isn’t long before the boy goes out to play in the snow, building a snowman, only to return inside to find the two of them in her bed together, where she threatens to tell his wife about the affair and the fact he has a son, and he yells at her and leaves, driving away at high speed. She follows, along with the son, but skids off the road onto a frozen lake. The son gets out of the car but the mother does, and the ice cracks, sinking into the frozen lake as the father, from his car, just watches in the distance.
Next we meet Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender), an elite crime squad detective with an obvious drinking problem. Fortunately for Harry he has people around him on the job who are willing to cover for his drunken benders, making excuses for his absence presumably due to the fact that he’s a great detective when he is on the job, although he seems to bemoan the lack of a murder rate and thus the lack of work for him to investigate. He soon meets a new recruit, Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson), who is assigned to a missing persons case of a young mother who’s disappeared out of her house with the door left open and everything she owned left behind, including her young child. Harry tags along on the investigation, talking to the child while Katrine talks with others, and learns about the snowman in the front yard, who was made by someone other than the child. Harry also learns about another, much older, case that Katrine is investigating on her own time, which involves Arve Stop (J. K. Simmons), a very successful businessman, which may or may not be connected to the new case she’s now investigating.
Through a series of flashbacks we learn more about the old case, led by another drunken detective, Gert Rafto (Val Kilmer), and as the movie progresses we learn about Harry himself, his problems and his now ex-girlfriend Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her son Oleg (Michael Yates), along with her new boyfriend. We discover the complexities of Harry’s character, his flaws but also his strengths, and we follow Harry and Katrine as they attempt to track down the mysterious individual behind the kidnappings and the snowmen left behind at the scenes, even as body parts start showing up and the killer gets more and more daring, especially toward Harry himself. The old movie plot then occurs as to whether they can stop the killer in time before the next snowfall leads to another killing, and… well, of course they do eventually catch the killer, but it’s not the easiest path to success for the characters.
The Delivery
So, you can tell immediately by the plot synopsis that this isn’t going to be a film unlike anything you’ve seen before. If you want that from your films I’d still recommend you check out “mother!”, which will give you a movie unlike anything you’ve seen this year. For The Snowman, however, what we get is a pretty basic thriller with a flawed detective teaming up with a younger rookie to track down a case which ultimately gets personal for them both. It’s not exactly smashing the thriller formula into a thousand pieces and rewriting it. However, when it comes to a standard thriller plot the film itself isn’t actually all that bad. It certainly introduces enough characters, and enough intrigue in said characters, to keep you guessing as to the exact killer and why he’s doing what he’s doing, which is a major bonus from some films of this type which make it blindingly obvious from the very beginning. Neither my friend whom I saw this with or me saw the identity of the killer from the outset, and we both were therefore taken on the ride with the plot, which more than kept us both engaged. And yes, while there is undoubtedly something to say about the “generic” nature of the plot, I stand by the belief that that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A well done, generic movie can still be a source of good entertainment after all.
The performances in the film are pretty good as well. Fassbender, in particular, I felt did well with what he was given to work with. His character, Harry Hole, is somewhat of a cliché in the sense that he’s a flawed but excellent detective, and definitely nothing original in that respect, but Fassbender’s performance gives you someone to root for at the very least. Many others in this role I feel would have made what is pretty much a generic detective character into a very generic and therefore not particularly likeable character, but Fassbender brings him to life like Fassbender tends to do. It’s a good performance by him, and the rest of the cast around him are more than decent in their supporting roles. Rebecca Ferguson, for example, does well with her role as Katrine Bratt, the newcomer who’s originally dismissive of Hole (despite having studied some of his work at the academy, thus implying he’s very well known for his past cases, which I’m aware are past books in the series), but soon accepts him for his input and works with him, without ever fully trusting him with the truth about herself and leaving him to figure it out on her own. Her character, and the interaction between the two of them, is certainly interesting throughout the film, and doesn’t quite go in the predictable route that I was anticipating it might.
While the actors do well with the material they’re given, the problem is that they’re not given the greatest material to work with, and that’s where the weaknesses of the movie start to come in. First off, it’s a little weird that it’s set completely in Norway, and makes plenty of references to the fact that it IS Norway that they’re in, but yet every single person in the film speaks English (sometimes with accents, sometimes without), and it’s never addressed as to why. I suppose it makes sense, because it’s a British-led movie, but I can’t help but feel that perhaps changing the setting from Norway to an English speaking area (Canada, for example) would have made more sense than keeping the setting but having all involved speaking English. It’s not the weirdest thing in the world, but it’s certainly an oddity that the film never bothers to explain away. That, however, is just a minor thing that bugs me. The big weaknesses come from the script, and the inconsistencies therein, from the fact that it very much feels like this is a later part in a longer story – which feels weird, since it’s not – to the fact that the story even has inconsistencies within itself.
The first of those problems doesn’t really ruin the movie, but it does feel a little like you’re starting a TV show on the second season without having watched the first season. During the first interaction between Katrine Bratt and Harry Hole she references some of his old cases that she’s studied, which I suppose worked within the movie because it tells us why his colleagues are willing to cover for him and why he gets the respect he does. He’s a great detective, clearly. But it also feels a little too much like a nod to the previous books, which weren’t movies, which makes me wonder why they started a story on a later book in the series and didn’t start with the first book? Then we also get his history with his ex-girlfriend and her son, whom he still has a great relationship with. Once again the way the movie deals with this makes you feel like there’s a whole relationship and a whole past between them, which I guess works from the perspective of this character having a history, but it also feels like there’s a story we don’t know, which is annoying as I now wonder if this story is told in the earlier books, and they just decided that we didn’t need to see it for the movie? Or was this the same with the books, and there’s a history there that we didn’t get to see, or was it that the books cover the history and the movie decide we didn’t need to see it?
That’s minor though compared to the inconsistencies within the story itself. These do bug me a little, when I think back about the film. The first is that Harry is a drunk. That’s a cliché amongst detectives of the past as it is, but it’s a cliché that they don’t actually bother exploring. Yes, we see that he’s a drunk, and he wakes up in a few weird places to emphasise this, but yet it doesn’t actually play into the story at all. There’s no point in the story that BECAUSE he’s a drunk something in particular happens, or BECAUSE he’s a drunk he misses something because he’s too busy drinking, or even that there’s some massive consequence of him being a drunk in the past which now means he can’t do something that would affect the story (other than the fact that he can’t drive, which is hardly a major plot point either). The movie just tells us that he’s a drunk, and then ignores that for the most part for the rest of the film. I’m not quite sure what the point is. Is it because his ex-girlfriend’s son, who again isn’t a major part of the film, struggles to trust him? I feel like something more significant should have happened with that, and again I feel like perhaps it’s a larger part of the books than it is the movie.
The second time the inconsistencies within the story itself affect the movie, however, is slightly more annoying. The second is the way they tell the story of the killer. It begins by giving us a little motivation by delving into the killer’s origin, which was a very solid start which I very much enjoyed. But after that it’s a little hard to really follow the killers motives. We’re told at one stage that he kills because of the falling snow, but that seems more like a theory than a fact, and while we are ultimately given some kind of justification for it, the actual killers story doesn’t really work within the confines of the film for me. Is it better in the book? I’ve read that there was a bunch of the script missing when they filmed, and I think possibly that may explain why the killers motivations aren’t 100% clear throughout the film. So, when it came to the writing of the film, this is one area I’ve got to say could be hugely improved. That said, it’s not all bad, and the film does a good job of introducing other alternative suspects that could easily have been the killer, but weren’t, but were still weirdly dodgy human beings.
The casting was good, even if it was all English casting and not even an attempt to do accents (although is that better or worse than bad accents, like the ones J. K. Simmons and Val Kilmer do, which sound a tad weird?), and the misdirection was all the better for the casting. Yet again though I wonder if one of the characters, who was introduced and played a major role in the film but ultimately wasn’t the killer, was something more in the books or if even in the books he was just a character in this one story. Part of me felt like the significance of this character was being saved for a later book, perhaps. The same is also true of some of Hole’s other colleagues. Are they more significant in other books? Is this one particular character a reoccurring character in later books, as a dodgy human being, or was this just one and done for the series? I guess we – the movie watching audience – may never know, unless we decide to go read the books after watching the movie. And if you do, feel free to let me know the answer because chances are I probably won’t be checking out the books.
The second to last thing to talk about is the movie in terms of the “creepiness” of it. The trailers certainly played up this aspect, making it seem like it would be a lot creepier than it actually was. The snowmen that the killer leaves at the scene, while kind of a weird gimmick, were ok looking. They weren’t exactly terrifying. There is one scene in particular which jumps out at me, where a decapitated victim has a snowman’s head put on their shoulders which was particularly memorable and used in the marketing from what I can remember, but there wasn’t really enough of this to be truly creepy. The Snowman gimmick that the killer used was, ultimately, just a bit of a weird gimmick. They perhaps could have played with it more, made it a bigger thing in the films, and focused on the snowmen more, or focused on them less and played up to that aspect less, but they did a weird level of focusing on it in between where it became more of a calling card than a truly creepy serial killer gimmick, which didn’t work all that well for me. That said, the scene with the decapitated head replaced with the snowman head was undeniably a good visual.
To end things on a down, since the movie kind of did for me as well, the plot relies a little too much on coincidence for my liking. This is a criticism I make of a lot of films, where something massive happens to change the whole plot or, in this case, to save the main characters life that really had no right to happen. Sometimes when there’s a deus ex machina in a movie I’m willing to forgive it if it’s built into the movie in some believable way, but the major one that comes to mind in this film is just unearned. It just happens and if it didn’t then the outcome would have been very different, but thankfully it did so it’s a happy ending. Again, I don’t know if the book is quite so “yay coincidental moment occurring”, but it does leave you wondering what the “great detective” would have actually done if the universe didn’t work for him and against his opponent, rather than the outcome actually being anything to do with HIM and HIS hard work or skills. And honestly, that did kind of ruin the ending of the film for me, and with a stronger ending it’s possible I’d look slightly more favourably at this film as a whole, but for me the ending does play into my overall rating.
The Verdict
If you want to know more about the way I rate films, check out my post explaining exactly that. That can be found by clicking here: The Verdict: Ranking Systems
That said, according to my own ranking system this film is only “good”, which I feel is right, although I specifically mentioned in the ranking systems post about sequels and I’d watch a sequel for a film I deemed “very good”, yet I’d watch a sequel to this film, but I can’t give it a “very good” ranking. Let’s begin by saying this film does not, in any way, deserve the critical slamming it’s gotten since it’s release. It’s far, far better than it’s Rotten Tomatoes score will say it is, and it’s far more enjoyable than a lot of critics reviews have made it out to be. It’s by no means a perfect film and it has plenty of flaws, but it is still a good film, carried well by a good performance by Michael Fassbender and backed up by a good performance by Rebecca Ferguson. The script could have done with a lot more work, but I’d imagine changing directors before production started, along with the problems the director has come out and said about the script not being complete, contributed massively to that. I can’t help but feel that if this DOES by some minor miracle become a franchise then they’ll work harder to fix the problems with the second film and that film will be the one that delivers. As it is, this film is still worth watching, just perhaps not worth paying full price for.
Rating:
Good
Watch it on Rental
I’d ultimately recommend this as a solid rental film, mostly because while it’s enjoyable (and I’ll watch it again when it’s out to watch again) I don’t think there’s enough in it to justify the Blu-ray purchase, as I’m not convinced that there’s enough in it to see a second time. I could be wrong, but I didn’t think there was a bunch of clues as to who the killer was spread throughout the film, so watching it a second time won’t give that feeling like now you know who it was you can enjoy the buildup in an entirely different way like other films – Lucky Number Slevin being a great example, or Fight Club – give you when you know the ending and you enjoy the film the second time in a whole new way by seeing the clues unfold. I have friends who haven’t watched this yet however and I’ll happily tuck up nice and warm on the sofa in the new year and watch it with them, so that’s an endorsement that this film is by no means as terrible as the critics will tell you.
Thanks for reading. If you’ve seen the film and disagree with me, and want to tell me that it’s a big heaping piece of garbage like so many critics seem to have labelled it, then feel free to do so. If you can convince me that I’m wrong and I should lower the rating then I’d be happy to hear your justifications. Alternative, if you want to talk about the positives of the film and the performances then again, feel free to do so. You can chat to me any time on Twitter (@AlexisEbdon) or Facebook (facebook.com/ajebdon) about this or any other film I’ve reviewed.