The Snowman

What a disaster. I have no idea why the creators decided to introduce Harry Hole to the audience through an adaptation of the sixth part of the book series. I don't know what someone who has never read the series can take away from the film, as it contains a lot of references to the previous storyline which isn’t part of the film. The film itself didn't make much sense to me, regardless of having read the books. The filmmakers made such a mess of the original story that I’m not sure why the murders were so complicated, and most of all, why J.K. Simmons agreed to take part in it. (2018-03-07)

I have not read the book, so I can only judge The Snowman in its film form, and I must say right away that I only hope the novel is better than its adaptation. The film has a pretty decent run-up, and the setting of the snowy north almost always adds some extra plus points, as do the complex crimes going into the past. The film even features a very decent cast. What I couldn't get past, however, was the completely unconvincing, even incomprehensible, motivation of the perpetrator for his actions. The final nail in the coffin, however, was the incredibly disconnected ending. I was expecting a chilling and raw thriller with a decently constructed plot, and I was obviously disappointed after watching it. (2020-03-28)

Boring, transparent, playing on the horrible psychology of the characters. But anyone who doesn't know Hole could care less because you don't see into him, you just know that he must be drinking and must have been living with someone and being a dad to someone, but he wasn't very good at it. He probably liked them, they probably liked him. But he screwed up sometimes. Probably the drinking. And then there's the killer. He's got a problem, too, but on the other hand, he's a genius because he can commit murder and build snowmen undetected. This adaptation was a waste of time. I haven't read the source material, but it’s been a long time since I’ve see such a boring movie. (2018-01-16)

Some spoilers: Inspired by Douglas and Gilmour93's unconventional defenses of the film, where the director himself admitted that it had no beginning, middle, or end because there was ultimately nothing to use to piece the film together, I also picked up the thrown gauntlet of alternative readings of this jumbled mess and came up with the idea that actually the only thing in the film that's real is the last scene. The rest is a glimpse into a perspective on Detective Harry Hole's past, warped by years of alcoholism and exhaustion, that superimposes disjointed, surreal scenes of his previous cases and burned-out relationships on top of each other. Right when he can just barely reach specific occurrences in his memory, he disappears right before he can touch them under the ice of an irreparably damaged mind. Postmodernism lives even if it doesn't want to, and old Lynch is somewhere in the back, nodding approvingly over his cigarette. PS: it still looks better than a lot of other adaptations of Nordic mysteries, though, and Alfredson's handling of space, camera work, and (wherever the wind keeps him from tripping over his own feet) dynamics is exemplary. But unfortunately, you simply can't turn a concentration camp into a bouncy castle by simply redoing a few barbed wires. (2018-01-03)

If, during a snow-covered and frosty winter evening, you feel like you’d like to watch a thriller with a suitable atmosphere, go for anything except The Snowman. Watching completely unlikable heroes for two hours groping their way along the killer's trail in the midst of such a lacking plot would still be bearable if The Snowman did not have a scattered and incomprehensible storyline - the characters emerge and disappear again, confusing the audience, although despite the frankly erratic investigation it does not mean you could not have already figured out who the killer was from the start. Then there’s the ending, which is so chaotically edited you can’t possibly know what the hell is going on. It's hard to say where it all went so wrong. Tomas Alfredson, a once-promising director, probably got buried in the snow sometime during the past few years. (2021-02-15)