Snow Cake - Special Edition [DVD]

Anchored by terrific performances from Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman, Snow Cake is a challenging, at times uneasy way to spend the best part of two hours. Yet it’s a strong, mature drama that deserves to be seen.

Weaver plays Linda Freeman, an active, autistic woman, and her path crosses with Rickman’s Alex Hughes. Hughes is the survivor of a car accident that’s killed Freeman’s daughter, and he’s still heavily traumatised as he seeks out Freeman to deliver the news.

Yet from this melancholy promise, Snow Cake then builds into an affirming, delicate drama of real merit. It’s in the small touches that it scores, ironically hitting its weakest moments when it tries to implement one or two ideas that don’t quite gel. But these are minor quibbles in an otherwise fine piece of cinema. Clearly its Rickman and Weaver’s film, but credit too should go to the able supporting cast, led by The Matrix’s Carrie-Ann Moss, along with Emily Hampshire and David Fox.

If you like your films simple and easy, then perhaps Snow Cake isn’t going to be your movie of choice. But if you’re willing to try something that’s restrained, challenging and in many ways surprising, then Snow Cake comes warmly commended. --Jon Foster

Alex (Alan Rickman), a tight-lipped Englishman recently freed from prison, is driving through Ontario when he begrudgingly picks up the vivacious teenage hitchhiker Vivienne (Emily Hampshire). On the outskirts of her hometown, a truck hits the car. Vivienne dies instantly and Alex finds himself, for the second time in his life, grieving for someone he never knew.

Devastated by the accident, Alex goes to the frozen backwater of Wawa, Ontario to visit Vivienne's mother Linda (Sigourney Weaver). There, he discovers that she is autistic with an unconventional take on life and mourning. Drawn in to the small frozen backwater community, Alex soon forms a close relationship with Linda, begins an affair with her sassy neighbour Maggie (Carrie-Anne Moss), and becomes the object of scrutiny by the ineffectual local law enforcement officer Clyde (James Allodi). As the funeral approaches, life in Wawa seems to have enabled Alex to face the present, but how will he cope when the dark secrets of his past finally emerge?

Includes a 30 minute documentary.