Tag Archives: The Snowman (2017)

The Snowman (2017) A (Mildly) Belated Review

I vaguely recall there was some excitement regarding the 2017 release of the film The Snowman.

Based on a novel by popular mystery/thriller writer Jo Nesbø, the film featured Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, J. K. Simmons, and Val Kilmer. The movie was produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In; Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy).

And yet, when the film was released, it was met with almost universal scorn from critics and Mr. Alfredson went on the acknowledge his film was a failure, even stating that because of budget cuts, he was unable to film some 10% of the script (!).

The film, needless to say, didn’t do too well at the box-office and was soon gone, if not forgotten.

Yet I was intrigued by the stories regarding the film and its final release. It isn’t often that you get what seems for all intents and purposes a very high profile “A” film with a great cast, director, writer, and producer which turns out to be -if the critics are to be believed- a near complete disaster.

Yeah, I was curious to see this film. I had to see for myself.

I’ll start with the good, which I think is pretty apparent from the above trailer: The film looks gorgeous. The snowy Norwegian setting is both beautiful and, when needed, creepy.

And that’s about all that’s good about this film.

This is a fragmented film whose story is at times difficult to follow because we have things happening here and there and often one sequence doesn’t even seem to be related to another. For example, the entire political subplot involving J. K. Simmons amounts to almost nothing in the context of the rest of the film. And Mr. Simmons isn’t even the only recognizable actor to appear in a nothing subplot. Perhaps one of the most head scratching sequence, a very small cameo appearance by Chloë Sevigny, has her play a victim of the serial killer and her twin sister!! Why? To give Ms. Sevigny three minutes of screen time instead of a paltry two?! Because that’s her entire story arc, victim then twin sister who shows up seconds later to say her sister was a good person, and that’s that.

Perhaps the saddest thing to see is Val Kilmer, who at the time was dealing with health issues and who looked, to be blunt, pretty sickly. Every bit of his dialogue was dubbed, quite badly, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he looks alarmingly frail, you’d laugh at the pathetic attempt to dub his lines in.

Michael Fassbender, a usually reliably good actor, is not terrible but is relegated to playing a one note character, your morose, brilliant, yet alcoholic/burnt out protagonist. His character’s alcoholism has him on the outs with the police department but he latches on to a promising young detective (Rebecca Ferguson) who has secrets of her own and is involved in what may be a case involving a serial killer.

Of course, it turns out that they are indeed dealing with a clever serial killer, one with mysterious motives and possibly years of hidden activity.

While the movie is a mess, in the end one does put the pieces together enough to understand the plot they were trying to present. Unfortunately, even with that knowledge one feels the story was underwhelming.

I suspect in the novel the movie was based on the many weird characters and scenes that seemed to go nowhere mattered a lot more than they do on screen. By the time we reach the movie’s climax and the serial killer is revealed, he turns out to be pretty much who we thought and afterwards wonder why he bothered with many of the actions he took.

As I said before, based on the stories I read about The Snowman, I couldn’t not see it. The curiosity alone made it irresistible.

But the movie is every bit as disjointed and disappointing as the critics said, with the only redeeming element being the wonderful cinematography and winter setting.

Too bad.

News of the weird… in film

Opening today, October 20th, is the film The Snowman.  Here’s the movie’s trailer…

Looks ok, no?

Based on one of the several bestselling Harry Hole (don’t snicker… that’s the name given the detective protagonist) novels by Jo Nesbø, the film features a cast that’s quite literally to die for.  You’ve got Michael Fassbender in the role of primary role of Harry Hole, Rebecca Ferguson (the standout actress, IMHO, in the last Mission: Impossible film and, hopefully, the one to come), the always reliable J. K. Simmons, the also always reliable Chloe Sevigny, and one other big name actor who I will mention in a moment.

The film is directed by Tomas Alfredson, who gained very positive reviews for Let The Right One In as well as (though I didn’t particularly like it) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Unlike those last two films by Mr. Alfredson, The Snowman, carries all kinds of hints it might be a disaster.  To begin, the film is being released in a relatively dead period of time, movie-wise.  Trailers, though they certainly exist, are hardly being shown on TV.  Fans of the books, likewise, can be forgiven in that the film’s lackluster advertising barely makes mention of the movie being related to the Jo Nesbø book(s).  Was this done on purpose?  Is the author himself not terribly thrilled with the film?

Let’s cut to the proverbial chase: You don’t have to be a psychic or a tea reader to feel the studios know they have a stinker on their hands.  They are essentially dumping it into theaters in the hopes they recover some of the budget spent on it yet it is equally clear these same studios aren’t getting their hopes up.  They refuse to spend on advertising -the also proverbial spending good money after bad- a film with this pedigree might merit.

Finally, the very early reviews (those that beat the movie embargo) are almost all negative.

The reason for my posting about the film is not because of the film itself but rather based on the following fascinating article concerning the actor I didn’t mention above, Val Kilmer.  He’s in the film, though based on this article, by Sam Adams and on Slate.com, his work here is very weird…

Val Kilmer’s Hacked-Up, Redubbed Role in The Snowman is Incredibly Bizarre

I really hope you click on the link above because it is a fascinating article that gave me memories of the late Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 From Outer Space.  Without giving too much of the article away, it would appear Mr. Kilmer’s role in this film is something akin to Mr. Lugosi’s role.

If you find inside Hollywood stories as fascinating as I do, you’ll enjoy this article.