Low visibility
The Snowman is a muddled mystery that fails to ignite much interest
Halfway through this Oslo-set muddled and chilly thriller, I started to suspect that red herring must be the national dish of Norway. Even the film’s trailer is a bit of a bait-and-switch, suggesting an almost supernatural horror, and featuring images and swaths of dialogue that don’t appear in the final cut.
The actual movie is more mystery than horror, but the biggest mysteries aren’t within the plot but behind it. Like why has J.K. Simmons pitched his trademark bass voice an octave higher for his role as industrialist Arve Stop? Why cast the great British actor Toby Jones in the throwaway role of a cop who appears in two slight scenes? And what’s with Val Kilmer, another there-and-gone character who looks like a Muppet version of old Marlon Brando, and sounds like his lines have been re-recorded from an underground bunker?
But let’s get back to the main characters: Michael Fassbender plays Harry Hole, adding to the trove of shifty movie Harrys that includes Lime, Palmer and Callahan, a.k.a. Dirty Harry. Most hard-drinking fictional cops are functioning alcoholics. This
is a malfunctioning one, given to waking up on park benches, chain-smoking indoors (where can you even do that anymore?) and missing days of work at a time — yet still looking like Fassbender, as revealed in a shirtless scene that looks like an outtake from Shame.
Harry starts working with officer Katrine Bratt, who is trying to find a link among several cold cases of disappeared women, and one fresh one, after a young mother on the outs with her husband vanishes. Fresh snow seems to be a common factor in the crimes, although as Harry points out, that’s scarcely a rarity in Norway. Katrine is played by Sweden’s Rebecca Ferguson, making her the highest-billed cast member to come from the region.
The messy plot includes Charlotte Gainsbourg as Harry’s ex-girlfriend; Jonas Karlsson as Mathias, her current partner; and Michael Yates as her son Oleg, who is neither Harry’s nor Mathias’s. Chloë Sevigny pops up twice as twin sisters; David Dencik as a creepy doctor; and James D’Arcy as the husband of one of the missing women.
It’s a powerful international cast, shepherded by Swedish director Tomas Alfredson. But the plot is a confused mess of dismembered bodies, postcard clues and go-nowhere scenes like the bunny-suited guy who is cleaning mould from Harry’s apartment building. By the time we learn who the killer is, it’s not so much an “aha!” moment as it is: “Oh, that one”
I’m sometimes prepared to blame myself for not being able to wrap my brain around a mystery, but in this case some are suggesting the film is the guilty party. “When we started cutting, we discovered that a lot was missing,” comes a quote that’s been making the rounds on the internet. “It’s like when you’re making a big jigsaw puzzle and a few pieces are missing so you don’t see the whole picture.” And that’s the director talking!
The Snowman is based on Snømannen, the seventh of Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø’s 11 Harry Hole novels to date. Clearly the studio is hoping for a franchise — there’s even a reference to
The Leopard, the next book in the series — but audiences are going to have to muster up a lot of goodwill to return after this befuddling first offering.
It might even take until hell freezes over. But given the
Nordic setting, that’s at least possible.