The Snowman -- a review

Harry Hole? Seriously? That’s the name of the lead character played by Michael Fassbender in The Snowman, a police thriller that’s set in the snowy landscape of Norway. It’s famously become one of the worst--if not the worst--movies of 2017, thanks in part to its own director, Tomas Alfredson, admitting that they were unable to film about ten to fifteen percent of the script, which led to large chunks of story that were missing when it came time to edit everything together. But even with some reshooting having been done after main production wrapped, The Snowman is still a mess.

Harry Hole is a slovenly drunk cop who wakes up in children’s playground areas, among other places (and given the bitterly cold Norwegian winters, one wonders how he even manages to wake up at all), when he’s not pestering his ex-girlfriend. A series of disappearances begins in Norway, with the victims being young women who have children. The killer telegraphs his intentions by creating snowmen outside the houses of his victims before they’re even taken. In one case, the killer even calls the police before he kills his victim, and then comes back later and kills her after they had left.

Why is he doing this? The opening scene tries to show some backstory regarding the killer’s motives. Yet the biggest problem with The Snowman is how dull and plodding it is. The pacing is as slow as a snail, and there nary any suspense at all in a movie that’s supposed to be a thriller. The editing itself feels very stilted and disjointed. There are way too many exposition scenes with people riding in cars, and all you see is the car traveling through the wintry Norwegian settings with the actors speaking in voice over. This is usually a desperate trick to fix a film’s narrative without having the proper scenes available.

This is obvious in how The Snowman is missing a lot of pick up shots, where you abruptly see a hand reaching for a gun--not having a clue who’s grabbing the gun, or for what reason. It’s a shame, because this film has a great cast and good production values, and somewhere in this jumbled mess it feels like there’s a halfway decent detective story. But The Snowman is just too screwed up to be worth anybody’s time. You might be better off reading the Jo Nesbø book instead. --SF

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