Snowcake, the Movie

A few months back, I watched a movie by the name of Snowcake.  It had been in my library of movies for quite some time before I had stuck it in the DVD player.  Preferring romantic comedies or action flicks, I felt that I had to muster up the energy to see a “sad” movie, or so I thought. 

Snowcake is a film about a woman with autism, Linda (played by Sigourney Weaver) who loses her daughter.  The movie starts off with an ex-con, Alex (played by Alan Rickman) who is out of jail and on his way home.  On a pit stop he meets a young woman who is also on her way home.  He agrees to give her a lift.  On the way, they get into a car accident and the young woman dies instantly.  Feeling guilt-ridden, he drives to her mother’s house to tell her in person what happened.  To his utter amazement, the mother is completely unaffected by her daughter’s death.  He ends up spending the week with her to help her take care of funeral arrangements at which time he learns about who she is, as a person.

The film also casts Carrie-Anne Moss as Linda’s neighbour, Maggie, who is very passionate about having relations with men.  One can’t help but notice the extreme opposites between the passiveness of Linda and the eager spiritedness of Maggie when it comes to people and relationships.

On the surface it appears that Linda deals with the death of her daughter in such a non-personal, non-emotional way. Alex finds it almost impossible to comprehend how someone could possibly be so “cold” about the loss of human life. The reality is that for Linda her Autism causes her to react in a non-typical way to sadness and tragedy in her life. As socially inappropriate as it appears to Alex, he soon realizes that Linda deals with the loss in her own way, in a way that makes sense to her.  More than anything, she celebrates life, especially the little things.  One can’t help but envy Linda’s youthful spirit for life. 

And I thought it was going to be a sad film......!

Sophie Dedman

Director, Challenging Minds, Inc.