Have you ever had a series of people cover for your every mistake? They’ll make excuses for your inattentiveness, your “poor memory,” your general selfish disregard for them and others in your life.
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| Photo credit: The Snowman/IMDb |
If you care for others as little as possible, the way that The Snowman’s protagonist, police detective Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender) does, it leads to a free ride through life. Sometimes he literally gets free rides because Harry is a drunk without a driver’s license who gets carted around town in the car of his new partner on the Oslo Police Department (Rebecca Ferguson) while they work on a case of a man who murders women and builds snowmen at the scene of the crime.
It’s a pretty sweet deal if you’re numb to everyone and everything—given that Harry is taken to passing out drunk in public places, it’s safe to say that he’s numb to the empty, violent world that surrounds him. But oh, The Snowman wants us to think it’s just that he’s hurt by the sadistic world that he sees every day on the job, including the intricately sliced and diced bodies left behind by the killer who also sends him taunting letters. Harry’s really got his heart in the right place, otherwise why would his ex-girlfriend (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her son, Harry’s kinda-sorta stepson, still want him in their lives, at hockey games and on father-son camping trips that he blows off? Clearly he must offer them something besides abandonment, right?
Nope. The Snowman is a film devoid of the connective tissues that would help it to make sense, such as how characters relate to each other or why they feel the way they do about each other or what J.K. Simmons is doing in a murder-thriller as a wealthy mover-shaker type trying to bring a Winter Sports World Cup event to the city—any movie that wastes the talents of everyone’s favorite M&M/Oscar winner has committed a grave sin that is nearly impossible to make up for.
The movie gives no explanation for why Harry is important to them. He never wavers from his default demeanor: a distant and morose man who can’t be bothered to do anything besides ruminate on the world’s most demonic creatures. Fassbender has never appeared so vacant and uninterested in a role than he does here, all faraway stares and slackened expressions potentially meant to convey drunkenness, but also potentially a sign of his boredom with a part that requires little investment from him.
But sure, fine, give the movie a (slight) pass for not having its heart in the character-development game. Police procedurals are regularly filled with characters flatter than a sheet of paper. That’s all forgivable as long as the movie brings the goods in the department of chills and thrills.
And, well, that’s where things become less forgivable.
The Snowman has the behind-the-camera pedigree necessary to scare the wits out of any viewer. Director Tomas Alfredson has made two of the finest chilly thrillers of this century, Let the Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but the icy climate of Norway in the winter, and the crimes committed in such a desolate place, appear to have broken his sense of true (cinematic) north. The same goes for co-editor Thelma Schoonmaker, famous for turning Martin Scorsese’s directorial efforts (Scorsese produced this picture) into American masterpieces with editing rhythms that pulsate like living things. These exceptionally talented people come together in this snow-encrusted thriller to do the dullest work imaginable.
Shocks are absent. In their place are steady shots that give away too much of the murders that are about to take place on the screen, if only the killer would hurry it up already. It. Takes. So. Long. And not in the way where the tension keeps building. It’s more like waiting for a tentative relative to finally jump in a pool after dipping his toes in it for 20 minutes—just get on with it already. This is all set to an overdone score that sounds like it was ripped from any number of royalty-free music sites’ “scary mood” sections, and the sound design makes every pre-murderous movement sound like dropping an entire kitchen’s worth of pots and pans. It’s so loud and obvious that it strains credulity to think that the intended victims of the Snowman killer would be so clueless about the danger they’re in. One victim, a professional trained in combat who is already on high alert while waiting for a different, non-killer person to enter the room, doesn’t even notice when loud footsteps come into the room and turn off the lights.
But hey, the movie’s heart is in the right place. So what if it’s boring, plodding, and more often than not doesn’t make a lick of sense?
Oh, right. Let’s not make excuses for the people or the movies that don’t bother to try.
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Writers: Peter Straughan, Hossein Amini, Søren Sveistrup
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jonas Karlsson, J.K. Simmons, Val Kilmer
Rating: 2/5 stars
Available in theaters now
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