The Snowman (Netflix)

Mister Police, you could have saved her. I gave you all the clues. The Snowman is based on a hit novel, produced by Martin Scorsese, directed by esteemed director Tomas Alfredson, and stars Michael Fasbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer, Toby Jones, Chloe Sevigney and JK Simmons. Is it possible a film with such an extraordinary assembly of talent could not be good? This is a Netflix roulette episode, where I pick a random film on Netflix and watch it. At the time of recording, this was the #1 movie on Netflix. Is it worth watching? I give my honest opinion. For better or worse, this episode is a first in the history of Watch This Tonight.

Did you watch The Snowman? What did you think?

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, An Bettimore.

(00:22):
I'm a producer, writer of filmand television and now a podcast producer.
And despite having every streaming service,I never know what to watch. So
anytime I watch something good, Italk about it on this show. This
way, you'll never have the sameproblem I do. I watched this tonight.
There's always something good to watch.Let's get started. We're doing something
a little different today on the show. So I have done in the past

(00:44):
Netflix Roulette, where I just picka random movie on Netflix and talk about
it. Today we're talking about TheSnowman, which is currently the number one
movie on Netflix. Mister police,you could have saved her. I gave
you all the clues you might rememberthis movie from a million mem and gifts
and whatever kind of making fun ofthe Snowman that like the creepy messages with

(01:07):
the Snowman drawing and jud generally theidea of like a Snowman serial killer movie.
I was sort of pleasantly surprised tosee it number one on Netflix.
In a weird way, I waslike rooting for this movie even though I
hadn't seen it. I knew ithad been critically maligned. Right it has
six percent on Round Tomatoes, definitelywas considered a box office flop relative to
its budget. Incredible cast like seriouslygreat Michael Fossbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlie

(01:30):
Gainsborg, Val Kilmer, Toby Jones, Chloe Sevigner, j K. Simmons,
director Thomas Alfredson let the right onein Tinker Taylor's Soldier Spy executive produced
by Martin Scorsese, as like,could this movie possibly be not good?
With all these talented people involved?So I wanted to find out is it

(01:51):
worth watching? Let's find out.So the movie starts and I'll warred you
before I get into pitres boilers.So the movie starts with this guy coming
to test this kid on Norwegian historyand if he gets the answer wrong,
he hits the kid's mom, whichis so over the top that it almost
plays Honestly, I kind of playedlike comical, like I think I laughed

(02:14):
like because it's so bleak, right, it just was. I don't know
how if you watch it, Ibused to know what you think. Maybe
I'm just sick of the head,But to be it actually just didn't land
right. It almost played like soovertop became kind of funny, and the
kids upset and he makes a snowman, and then there's an implied rape of
his mother by this guy, andthen there's like this POV shot of the

(02:37):
snowman looking through the window as ifthe snowman is alive, and it's it's
just hard to explain unless you watchit. But this starts what is a
very consistent issue with the movie,which is that snowmen are intrinsically silly.
So even though what's happening in andaround snow men in this movie is extremely

(03:00):
anytime you cut to a snowman,I'm probably gonna laugh, it's just it's
just is a funny image contrasted withmurder, like a serial killing, right,
which is what this movie is about. Anyway. In the opening kind
of teaser section, the idea isthat this guy I had to look on
Wikipedia to make sure I understood thiscorrectly. This guy is a cop and
the kid that we're seeing at thebeginning is like his illegitimate child that he's

(03:23):
head with this woman. The womanis psychologically destroyed by this relationship and drives
her car into a lake and drownswhile her son watches, and you know,
and he does obviously he is alsopsychologically destroyed. And this is all
before the opening credits, so prettyactive first five minutes of this movie.
We jumped to present day worth MichaelFossbender. I think it's a natural assumption

(03:45):
that he's the adult version of thekid. That's what I assumed. There's
a guy cleaning dry rot out ofMichael foss Spender's apartment. He doesn't know
who that guy is, so heshows up the apartment, sees him,
takes out his gun and shoots athim, and the guy doesn't seem that
upset about it. I don't know. I think if I shot at I
was working on my house, Ithink he would be pretty pissed. He
seemed to take it in stride.You know, this speaks to a lot

(04:08):
of the things that we're talked aboutwith this movie. And I'm going to
get to what the director said,which kind of explains this stuff. There's
some weird stuff for this movie thatyou're like, what's going on here,
But then there's moments that peek throughof like a legitimately good movie. So,
for example, Fosbender goes to cafeteria, moves a chair in the cafeteria
to make sure no one sits withhim. That's a great little character detail,

(04:30):
right, And then he gets thecreepy letter with the drawing of the
snowman again in live action, right, like physically seeing it and seeing the
camera to kind of, you know, go down until you see the little
drawing of the snowman. It justI don't know, it's maybe I'm just
childish, but for whatever I cannottake it seriously. And I wonder if
on the page it was a loteasier to like be wrapped up into it

(04:55):
and find it scary, but whenyou actually have to literalize it, it's
just hard to take it seriously.And here's another example. So we see
a woman that's like walking alone toher car, which is like classic serial
killer set up, right, andshe gets hit by a random snowball from
nowhere and she sort of looks outlike, oh, who threw that?
And she sort of like smiles like, oh, someone's being playful, and
obviously we know it's like this islike the prelude to a murder most likely.

(05:18):
Again, like it's just hard tofind that scary. Now, some
of this might be explained by thisquote that the director tells us Alfredson gave
to the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. Accordingto Yahoo UK, he said they didn't
shoot everything that he wanted on thisit's an adaptation of a book of a

(05:39):
joanesbo crime thriller. He said thatten to fifteen percent of the script remained
unfilmed, causing major gaps in thestory. He said, quote, our
shoot time in Norway was way tooshort and we didn't get the whole story
with us, and when we startedcutting, we discovered that a lot was
missing. Quote. It's like whenyou're making a big jigsaw puzzle and a
few pieces are missing, so youdon't see a whole picture. He also

(06:00):
said that when they got funding,they kind of rushed into production. He
said, quote it happened very abruptly. Suddenly we got noticed that we had
the money and we could start theshoot in London. This may explain why
it takes forty minutes to get tothis kind of father's son relationship between Fosbender
and Oleg, who is the sonof Fosbender's character's ex girlfriend and kind of

(06:25):
the only reason to care about Fosbendernow at this point I'm about forty minutes
in the movie, we're gonna getto kind of like the first big showy
murder. So I guess if youwant to avoid spoilers, like this is
a spoiler alert, although to spoilmy own review, this is going to
be the first time in the historyof watched this tonight, I'm going to
say, maybe don't watch this tonight. Yeah. If there's one show that

(06:49):
or a movie that I would suggestyou just keep listening and probably not watch
the film, I think it's thisone. And I'm sad to say that
there's so many times to people involvedin this. I know how hard it
is to make a movie period,not much less a good movie. So
I'm not saying any of this tolike knock the movie. I just it's
just the reality of it. Ifyou watch this movie, like, there's

(07:10):
a reason it's six percent of onTomatoes. But I do think it's a
really interesting movie to kind of unpack. So it's almost like I've done the
homework for you. If you werecurious about this movie, but you don't
want to spend two hours watching itand you want to know kind of like
what happened, what are the meritsof it. What was the movie that
could have been that sort of peeksthrough, like I'm going to sort of
walk you through all that and therest of this episode. All right,

(07:30):
so you've been warned. Forty sevenminutes in Chloe seven, Yer gets decapitated
by essentially the device in the counselorif anybody saw that movie, it's an
electrified wire that sort of tightens aroundyour head, which I have to say,
much scarier than a snowman. Andthen her killer places her body like
and a snowman, which again justlooks a little silly. Michael Foss,

(07:53):
spennor Recca Ferguson go to like checkon her, they actually had already went.
They go back, they discover she'sa twins. Just general rule I
would say of fiction, try toavoid twins. You know, I think
twins always play a little silly.It's tough for that not to play like
soap opera silly. I would loveto know if anyone's listening to this has
actually read the book, because again, maybe all this stuff works great in

(08:15):
a novel. I could imagine itworking in a novel much easier. Another
example, so Foster Finder's Character's nameis Harry Hole. That's his name right
now on the page. It's alliteration. It sort of looks nice just look
at it visually, but if youhear someone say it in a line of
dialogue, it feels like a lethallike a it feels like a naked gun

(08:37):
movie, because they'll be like,hey, is Harry Hole there? Like
what are you making a crank call? Yeah, it's just again, it's
what are those things? Or thetranslation from the page to the screen is
challenging. What's amazing about this movieis like everyone is so overqualified, right
incredibly, I mean down to thedirector of photography, the editor, or
like all the actors. I've madea bunch of low budget films, you

(09:00):
know, as a developing executive,that were shot in like eleven days,
twelve days, fifteen days, andwhen you're making a movie on that short
of a schedule, you're swimming uphill. First of all, just get the
movie done, much less make ita good movie. And it's almost watching
this film, I was reminded ofour challenges and trying to make a movie
and let's say twelve days right whereyou're like, we're just trying to get

(09:22):
this done. It's almost as ifthis movie with all these stars somehow did
not have enough time to shoot,it doesn't make sense, like was it.
It seems like there's like a budgetissue here or something like why did
they not have the time they neededto get everything that they had to get.
It's weird, but I mean again, you can clearly see it when
you watch the film, right.It made me think of in twenty eleven,

(09:46):
in the NFL, the Philadelphia Eaglessigned like every free agent possible,
right, all of the coveted freeagents, and in training camp they interviewed
Vince Young, and Vince Young said, wow, yeah, no, it's
like we got the dream team,and then they immediately went They started the
season like one and four and theyfinished the season eight and eight. That's
what this movie is like. It'slike, let's get all these amazingly talented

(10:07):
people together, but somehow the teamdid not mesh, and it's just it's
just kind of all over the place. But again, every once in a
while, you see the promise ofthe film. For example, Fossbender forgets
to take Old Leg on a trip. He promised he was gonna take him
too, and it's almost like arresteddevelopment. Like Old legs, like standing
somewhere with all this stuff he wasgonna take on this trip and fox Spenders

(10:30):
aren't there, and and fos Spendersex girlfriend's new guy calls the kid and
takes the fall for fox Spender forthe good of the kid, which is
a very nice thing to him todo, and just an interesting character moment
that really worked. Again, I'mgonna warn you spoilers because we're gonna really
get in here. Rebecca Ferguson diesand she's the second lead and you know,

(10:54):
a pretty big name in the movie, and that was pretty ballsy.
And then kind of like the wholerun of the end is so good that
for a second, I'm like,maybe this movie is good, Like it
almost got me back in. Theextremely nice new boyfriend of Michael Fosspender's former
lover is the Killer's He was thekid in the beginning of the movie,

(11:16):
not fos Spender. He was thatkid by having him do something for a
fos Spender that was so nice,so legitimately nice. I totally did not
suspect him, and so it wasa genuine surprise when he was revealed as
the killer, and his character motivationactually really nicely connects with Fosbender's character.
He was a kid who was abandonedand so he's killing people that it has

(11:39):
something to do with like abortion clinics. It's basically his attitude is like,
you know, someone has to takecare of the children because he was not
taken care of. So his attitudetowards Fossbender is, look, you have
this woman who loves you. Ifthis little kid who looks at you is
like father figure, why are youabandoning them? Why can't you take responsibility?
Which is true, he's right,So it sort of forces Fosbender to

(12:00):
like admit to his faults and it'sthat all all that character stuff really works,
and then the final confrontation between themis gorgeously photographed on this frozen Lake
story comes full circle. The villain, you know, false to the frozen
lake and dies just like his mother. All that worked really well. There's
like a good ten or fifteen minuterun at the end of this movie that's
actually really good, so you cansee where it could have been a good

(12:22):
movie. But while it has effectiveelements like that, it also has kind
of weird, random feeling stuff.There's a very abrupt, dry humping scene
that occurs between Fosbender and Charlie Gainsbourg. It kind of starts and stops for
you. You're like, what ishappening here? There's a side note between
this and Alice Darling, which Ipreviously reviewed on the show Dry Humping really

(12:45):
making a comeback in cinema. Ifeel like this movie is like, I
wonder if David Fincher watches this movieand tells people like, this is why
I am the way I am,because you know, Fincher is so obsessive
to a crazy degree about getting everylittle thing right, and it feels like
this movie is kind of in anopposite boat, meaning that you know,

(13:07):
maybe if they got that twenty percentmore of the scripts or whatever, it
would have been there, and maybeif, you know, maybe if there
was like just a more cohesive attentionto detail and the continuity of tone and
things of that nature, you know, it could have been considerably more effective.
All that being said, though,I think the Snowman thing was always

(13:28):
going to be funny. I don'tcare, Like, there's no way you
could tell me brutal murder. Snapcut to Snowman with like a smiley like
a face and arms and stuff thatyou're not got to laugh. I just
think that that was gonna be atough thing to overcome, no matter who
made this movie. So yeah,I mean apologies to everyone involved in The

(13:48):
Snowman. But I guess I don'tfeel too bad about this because the director
has himself said that you know aboutthe movie's flaws and why they are there.
I hate to knock any movie,you know. I think even even
an ineffective movie is going to havesomething that's worth seeing, which is totally
the case here. By the way, there are definitely like three to four

(14:09):
like legit good sequences in this film. But yeah, I mean number one
movie on Netflix. Yeah, Ihave to be honest and say, probably
don't watch this tonight. So thisis the first, maybe only we'll see
if I do more Netflix Roulette,we'll see how it goes, but only
episodes so far, where ironically I'mgonna say don't watch this tonight. That

(14:31):
is the show for today. Thankyou so much for listening. As always,
I want to give a little note. I got some nice um listener
comments supporting my love for Syrianna,so I guess I'm not alone in that,
And yeah, I really appreciate everyonewho you know reaches out. It's
it's great to have sort of discoursewith the listeners, so thank you for
doing that. That is the showfor today. As always, you can

(14:54):
find me on Twitter at Benimore DanInstagram, watch this tonight ticktime, watch
this tonight podcast. You can shootme an email Dan avoidchemedia dot com,
or you can join our Facebook group. Until next time, Bye bye m M.