Snow Angels

Chances are this movie slipped by under your radar. If you missed it, you need to hunt down a copy. It shouldn't be too hard. I'm sure Netflix has it and they're giving away copies at the secondary markets.


I was looking for something to watch last night and I dropped by Big Lots. They have a large assortment of DVDs for only three dollars. I couldn't find anything and I was about to give up when I saw a lone copy of Snow Angels sitting there. I've wanted to see this movie for a while, so I snapped it up.

Snow Angels was directed by David Gordon Green and he adapted the Stewart O'Nan novel of the same name. It's almost impossible to believe that Green, who made such smart independent films like All the Real Girls, Undertow, and Snow Angels also made something like Your Highness. And people bitched about the remake of Susperia he was once attached to. Nothing could be as bad as Your Highness. Methinks Green needs to disassociate himself from his old friend Danny McBride.

I was spellbound from the minute I put Snow Angels on. This is a hypnotic story of sad lives in a small, snowy town. We meet several people whose lives are in turmoil. Events escalate and erupt into tragedy. This is such a sad story. We know people just like those in the story. Hell, some of us ARE those people.
Snow Angels begins slowly and it demands patience. The viewer gradually gets into the heads of the characters and feels their loneliness, their desperation. There is a feeling of impending doom hovering over the entire movie.

All the performers in Snow Angels are excellent, but the great Sam Rockwell truly stands out. Rockwell is one of the most underrated actors working today. He was marvelous as Wild Bill, in The Green Mile, and I just saw him in Frost/Nixon. Rockwell was also really good in Moon, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Snow Angels is his best role, I think. His character is complicated, tragic, and more than a little frightening. Frightening because some of is might see a little too much of ourselves in him.

I was just thinking that Woody Allen needs to call Sam Rockwell and put him in one of his movies, but he already appeared in one. It's a very small role, but Rockwell was in Celebrity.

Watching Snow Angels reminded me that I badly need to read more Stewart O'Nan. To be completely honest, I find it very hard to get into his style. I started a couple of his books and didn't get very far. I did enjoy a story he had a while back in Cemetery Dance Magazine. Like the movie, Snow Angels, O'Nan's work might require patience. And like Snow Angels, that patience will probably be amply rewarded. For some reason his novel, Last Night at the Lobster sounds really good to me. That's the one I'll probably try first.

In the meantime, folks, if you weary of dumb, loud, flashy excuses for thrillers, or phony baloney dramas, please make a point to see Snow Angels. When you do, you'd better get out a blanket. This movie will chill you to the bone.