Review of the film "The Snowman"

Let me first say how much I appreciate the film's director, Tomas Alfredson, before I properly begin my review of The Snowman. He does not downplay the film's flaws in promotional appearances for The Snowman. He has been honest about the hurried production schedule in Norway, the incomplete script, and the reshoots that ultimately failed to complete this genuinely jacked-up cinematic puzzle.

Michael Fassbender plays the dreadfully titled investigator Harry Hole in The Snowman. Harry is a drinker who enjoys dozing off and awakening in odd locations on Norway's icy streets. Harry is a renowned investigator whose cases are examined for his amazing investigative success while he's somewhat sober. After his most recent binge, he gets assigned his current case after spotting junior investigator Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson) slipping away with sensitive documents.

Harry makes the decision to support the younger investigator by looking into a number of peculiar missing person situations. Each of the instances centers on a blonde woman who has some sort of secret, which the movie is delightfully ambiguous about whether or not it has anything to do with sex or something else. Due to the fact that the movie is set in Oslo, the killer's obsession with snow is also very amusing. We are prompted to speculate about the size of the killer's corpse count when the younger detective says that the killer is triggered by snow because of where the killer lives in the globe.

The serial murderer plot is the A-Plot, while Harry's old home life is the B-Plot, and it is far more detailed and given more attention. This is strange for many reasons, but mostly because the material concerning Harry, his ex-girlfriend Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the son who doesn't know Harry is his true father (Michael Yates), and Rakel's strangely lovely new lover Matthias (Jonas Karlsson) is incredibly boring. The movie abruptly and startlingly stops every time the B-Plot is allowed to take the lead.

The final justification for the B-Plot in the movie is very hilarious, but I won't give any more details here to avoid giving away any surprises because The Snowman is so full of terrible ideas that I almost suggest viewing it. I just half-joke, but I kind of want want people to see this stupid movie to prove that what I witnessed indeed occurred. Was the girlfriend-son narrative really given so much screen time that the serial murderer plot's crucial components were left out? Did that actually occur?

In the second act of The Snowman, there is a scene where we sit impatiently through Harry discussing his unknown parentage with his teenage son, which is abruptly followed by Harry appearing to be on the hunt for the murderer and investigating the crime in a way that makes it appear as though Harry is a psychic who keeps his amazing talent to himself. The scene quickly shifts from Harry running into the victim's home to him following cryptic clues to the most unlikely place he could have looked for the victim's missing head. He discovers it in a place where the killer could not have possibly gotten to in the time it took Harry to arrive and still had time to construct a snowman on which to hide the body part. It's a puzzling, appallingly mishandled string of sequences.

Much of the storyline suggests that significant chunks of the story were either left out entirely while filming or were simply forgotten in the editing process, which director Alfredson has since acknowledged. The movie's central serial killer premise is completely messed up and comes out as pure rubbish. The major murderer revelation appears to have been determined at random by picking a movie character out of a hat and declaring them the killer. Never mind that this completely wastes the screen time of a number of supporting characters.

None of the actors, including Val Kilmer, Toby Jones, J.K. Simmons, and Chloe Sevigny, was required to appear for their parts because none are relevant to the story. Red herrings are a staple of any good mystery film, but in The Snowman, they are so awkward and ridiculous that, like much of the film's other elements, they accidentally make the audience laugh. The biggest waste of all is Kilmer. The mysterious Kilmer is startlingly unrecognizably unlike the detective he is playing while following the same lead as Harry. Although it is incredibly over the top, it is also Val Kilmer at his best and pretty captivating in its horror.

Kilmer's sudden departure from the story is a real loss for the film. He left us far too soon since he was without a doubt the most fascinating aspect of The Snowman. According to reports, Fassbender, the film's leading man, might have learnt a few things from Kilmer, who has made a bizarre and delightfully varied career out of portraying such characters. Fassbender appears to pull off the drunken part, but he comes out as way too restrained and European. Fassbender appears to be worried about maintaining his dignity, but Kilmer has no such qualms, and it's absolutely magnificent.

However, other from Kilmer, The Snowman doesn't offer many targeted thrills. I presume studio meddling, time and financial restraints, as well as Tomas Alfredson's talent, are to blame for how he managed to helm such a subpar film. You may tell that Alfredson is a master artist by watching Let the Right One In or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I won't agree that The Snowman is just his mishmash.

Check out this piece from The Vulture where Alfredson discusses some of the difficulties he had while making the movie for more information on this. When Martin Scorsese withdrew from the project but continued as a producer, he took over. The movie was approved, but it had to be made quickly and with little time on site in Norway, which is where the story takes place and is therefore partly crucial to the film's production. When Alfredson discovered he didn't have the requisite shots, reshoots were required, but the time allotted for them was so short that he was still unable to complete the crucial shots in time.

Tomas, be strong. Hollywood isn't always a welcoming environment, but talented directors are always able to recover.