A two-hour puzzle where a lot happens on
the surface – complete with confusing flashbacks – but disappointingly little
stirs underneath. (Review by Patrick Compton -5/10)
I suspect that Jo Nesbo fans are good at
cryptic crosswords. His dense, confusing plots are too much for my probably
underheated brain to process.
I also suspect that Swedish director Tomas
Alfredson has made matters worse in his adaptation of Nesbo’s seventh novel in
the Harry Hole series, The Snowman,
by creating a two-hour puzzle where a lot happens on the surface – complete
with confusing flashbacks – but disappointingly little stirs underneath.
Nesbo’s enigmatic detective is played by
Michael Fassbender with the emphasis on enigmatic. He’s an occasional drunk who
we first meet sleeping it off in a bus shelter on a freezing morning in Oslo. The
causes of his alcoholism, and much else relating to his inner self, is,
however, stubbornly withheld from us. We do understand that he has been ditched
by his previous girlfriend, Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg) although he retains a
connection with her son (Michael Yates).
The dark centre of the movie concerns the
bloody activities of a Norwegian serial killer who kidnaps women and then
carves them up (an oblique prologue hints at who this man might be).
Hole, who occasionally receives cryptic
notes from the killer, joins up with bright newcomer Katrine (Rebecca Ferguson)
to solve the case. The pair spend their time in Oslo and nearby Bergen trying
to understand the killer and track him down as the body count begins to
increase. Unfortunately, the haphazard structure of the film, and sometimes
confusing machine-gun editing, makes it difficult for them to forge much
chemistry.
The killer’s signature is a rather tatty
looking snowman which appears at the various crime scenes, but there are any
number of red herrings on display to lead us astray, which makes it even
tougher to decipher what’s going on. Other characters on the frozen stage
include JK Simmons as a sinister mogul driving Oslo’s bid to host the Winter
Olympics, and Val Kilmer who is barely recognisable as a dissolute detective
investigating a potentially related case of murder years before.
The fact that three people wrote the
screenplay and two edited the film suggests a complicated production history
and the possibility that fresh people were brought in to clarify what could
have been an even messier initial product.
My disappointment is accentuated by the
fact that Alfredson was responsible for two of excellent films, the zombie
drama Let the Right One In and his
peerless adaptation of John le Carre’s Tinker
Taylor Soldier Spy.
The biggest concern, plot complications
aside, is that the movie’s characters are difficult to get to know so it’s hard
to care one way or another what happens to them. One compensation, if you’ve
given up on the people and the plot machinations, are the splendid wintry
landscapes which have been captured by cinematographer Dion Beebe.
The
Snowman opens in Durban on October 13. – Patrick Compton
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