Film: Snow Cake

Snow Cake is an independent film written by Angela Pell, starring Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman.
As someone who is intrigued by titles I was delighted with the incorporation of the meaning of ‘snow cake’ within the film, which I felt was neither forced nor projected. Filmed during the winter in northern Ontario it covers the hours leading up to a fatal car crash and the aftermath of the event. On the surface the film is about death and how people deal differently with loss.
This film explores adult autism in a way that I have not seen since Rain Man. Sigourney Weaver plays a high functioning autistic woman and is so amazing in her role that she was nominated for Best actress at the 27th Genie Awards (the Canadian film award given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television). I read that Sigourney Weaver studied the subject of autism and was coached by Ros Blackburn- who herself is autistic as well as a published author and well know speaker on the topics of autism and Aspergers syndrome. Interestingly, Alan Rickman apparently did not research the subject of autism to give his character a genuine experience with Sigourney Weavers’ portrayal of it. They were both brilliant in this film.

I really don’t want to give any of the story away and would recommend that you do not read the top ten google searches for the film which all (disappointingly) give the whole story away. The film is not full of many twists and turns but it is slow and savory giving the viewers the luxury of a glimpse into the mind of someone who sees the world in a view that is both tormented and beautifully “dazlious”.