Autism Rox!

Vastly underrated actor Alan Rickman plays a sad, lonely man who gives a vivacious girl a ride one day, only to get involved in a car accident that kills said girl. Feeling immense guilt both from the wreck and his tons of emotional baggage that follow him around like a determined stalker, he decides to pay her mother, Sigourney Weaver, a visit and apologize, only to discover that she's (gasp!) a high-functioning autistic! Not knowing what else to do, and feeling a sense of responsibility towards her, he agrees to stay till after the funeral, and in those few days, manages to connect with her and comely next-door neighbor Carrie-Anne Moss, who appears to be ostracized because she (double gasp!) enjoys sex (the whore!).

As you can see, Snow Cake is a resolutely middle-brow film, whose sole purpose seems to be telling us at every available opportunity that Autistic People Are People Too!, Why Can't We All Just Get Along? and even Sometimes Being Autistic Is Better Than Being Normal. It's to the credit of Rickman that it doesn't quite descend to TV movie level, but it gets dangerously close.

As a character study of Rickman's character, it's a pretty decent one, as through his interactions with Weaver and Moss he slowly peels away the walls he's built up around himself to reveal a wounded soul. Rickman is able to get us to look past the fact that his character is exactly like all the wounded souls that typically pop up in navel-gazing indie flicks by getting at the humanity inside, and it is precisely this humanity that connects with the audience. In fact, he single-handedly makes several potentially cringe-worthy scenes actually watchable. Unfortunately, Weaver is less effective playing Cute or Crazy Autistic, sometimes crossing over into pure annoying. Moss is decent, even though her small role is limiting.

Bottom line: It's a well-meaning, if ultimately rather mediocre movie apart from the rather good character study that Rickman provides. If you're expecting an engaging, entrancing time at the movies, this isn't it. If you like character studies though, it just might be worth your time.