Reviews

Snow Cake

Marc Evan's mawkish soap opera

By PETER KEOUGH | May 29, 2007

1.0 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for Snow Cake.

It was thought that the Academy might consider one of the performances in Marc Evan’s mawkish and contrived soap opera for a nomination: Sigourney Weaver as the autistic Linda. But her turn is an embarrassing one, more like Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s creation than Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. The real Oscar candidate here is Alan Rickman as a restrained and sardonic stranger with a mystery past. Then again, Alex might just be Rickman’s rueful response to the hokum he has to work with. For some reason, Alex is driving cross-country to Winnipeg when a talky teen hitchhiker gets him to give her a lift. A semi blindsides the car, the girl dies, and he feels compelled to visit her mentally challenged mom to pay his respects because, you see, he . . . But we’ve already got too much manipulative nonsense going on, not the least of which is Weaver’s infantile gooing at snowflakes and shiny objects and her preternatural wisdom on the trampoline when she says, “We all have to get over it! Now, bounce me!”

Nobel Son
A precious, hyperkinetic mess
Crossword: 'I'm not a doctor!'
But I get this cool title anyway
Stranger than Fiction
Submits to the temptations of clichés and bathos
More

Topics: Reviews , Alan Rickman , Sigourney Weaver , Celebrity News , More

Comments

Add a Comment

Today's Event Picks

[WORDS] DROPPING SOCIAL SCIENCE: MALCOLM GLADWELL

Plus 2 more >>

ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH

REVIEW: MILK | December 05, 2008
Van Sant's gay of reckoning

REVIEW: AUSTRALIA | November 25, 2008
Baz Luhrmann's Oz and ends

INTERVIEW: CLEVE JONES | November 25, 2008
Retro active

SIMPLE BLOOD | November 24, 2008
Twilight puts the life back into the undead

WHIZ KID | November 24, 2008
Slumdog Millionaire is a magical misery tour

See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

Most Viewed

Most Emailed

GRAFFITI WARS
Cops and taggers play a high-stakes game of cat and mouse

100 UNSEXIEST MEN OF THE YEAR FOLLOW-UP
Because There Was an Election

DOING IT LIVE
Crystal Stilts hit the road

LUCKEY IN AMSTERDAM
Paralyzing hopelessness at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam

FREEDOM WATCH: JAILHOUSE BLOC
Want to know the real reason the law-and-order set backs mandatory-minimum sentencing? They get their pockets lined by the 'prison-industrial complex.'

GRAFFITI WARS
Cops and taggers play a high-stakes game of cat and mouse

LUCKEY IN AMSTERDAM
Paralyzing hopelessness at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam

ALONE TOGETHER
Wayne Shorter Quartet, Berklee Performance Center, December 3, 2008

FREEDOM WATCH: JAILHOUSE BLOC
Want to know the real reason the law-and-order set backs mandatory-minimum sentencing? They get their pockets lined by the 'prison-industrial complex.'

SUM SUDOKU XXXII
Psycho Sudoku!

HOT TOPICS

Daniel Day-Lewis , Jack Black , Michael Clayton , Michael Haneke , Osama bin Laden , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Michael Jackson , Paris Hilton , Paul Thomas Anderson , Tommy Lee Jones

Reviews

Snow Cake

A terror unlike the usual terrors

Fresh air does wonders in politics

One Day you'll learn

Parental discretionary donors

Bringing up Baby