First Snow | Review

Pearce fails to elevate faulty screenplay.

Tapping into that meta-physical space that we common folks know as premonitions, First Snow is a passive thriller that suggests that the more you know is not necessarily for the better. Partially a reflection on erasing the past and making the best out of the future and a thorny you can’t cheat fate scripture, screenwriter Mark Fergus’ directorial debut stems from a corny idea that never solidifies into the noir suspense that it aspires to be. While Guy Pearce is totally watchable from beginning to end, the lack of cohesion between parts of the screenplay makes this feel like that moment where you open that Ikea box with all the 200 plus pieces neatly laid out – many of us have very little motivation to painstakingly go through the motions of building it on the spot.

Aesthetically casting the film with a similar color palette as that seen in Owning Mahowny – (also about a male protagonist trying to cheat what fate will serve him in the end), Fergus and co-writer Hawk Ostby construct a main character whose got schemer written all over him and it makes him especially diligent when he feels that he is being somehow swindled himself. In the early stages of the script, this character played by Guy Pearce visits a fortune teller (well cared for part played by Jackie Burroughs) who out of the blue offers a reimbursement – thus becomes the starting point for an understandable obsessive internal paranoia and anxiousness at the first sight of an innocent looking snow flake.

There is a sequence in the film where Pearce’s Jimmy character is held hostage to the fear of being found out – this makes up a fair portion of the film’s narrative drive. While his unclear and clouded past helps retain a curiosity factor, the moments where he squeals away are anti-climatic – especially when we easily predict that the character played by Piper Perabo serves only to remind us that at the end of the day man likes to curl up with a lady friend and not an empty bed.

Pearce seems perfectly fit for such roles – he summons the appeal of drifters, bad salesman, con artists looking for the closest exit door – this character certainly feels like a little déjà vu a la Memento – especially with the seedy hotels, used cars and flatland spaces. While atmospheric details grips the viewer, some of the plot devices loosens the grip hold on the ambiance making First Snow not a bad first effort, just that it shifts frequently between enticing to un-engaging.

Reviewed on April 4th 2007.

Rating 2 stars