The Snowman (2017) Director Tomas Alfredson, based on the book of the same name by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo, screenplay by Peter Straughan, Hossein Amini, Søren Sveistrup.
Posted by celticman on Fri, 24 May 2024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snowman_(2017_film)
I was a big fan of Wallander on BBC4. I watched every episode. Every episode he investigated a murder nobody else could solve. Wallander was estranged, but on good terms with his wife and daughter. Whisper it. He was an alcoholic. His greatest addiction wasn’t booze, it was work.
Harry Hole is a better looking Wallander. After all the titular role goes to Michael Fassbender. He works for the Norwegian Police Service. He’s got an estranged wife, Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg) (whisper it living with a… I picked that up quite early). But Harry is given a lot of leeway at work, living on past glories.
Katrine (Rebecca Ferguson) reminds him of this by saying they studies his old cases at Wallander school in Oslo. I wasn’t sure how she assigned herself to the case and Harry’s office while being suspended. Norway has always been a more lenient culture. All the latest technology but no phones? She’s a hottie, but Wallander only has eyes for unusual homicides, his-ex-wife and his stepson, Oleg. Wallander had a faithful dog, that would have ranked higher than Katrine, but she’s got her own agenda. No surprises there.
There’s a crooked politician. And a serial killer who leaves behind snow men. His snow men are pretty good. Luckily for him, everyone speaks perfect English. Fassbender makes a terrible drunk, because he looks just the same as he does sober. He’s like Steve in Coronation Street, but with better hair. He’s only got two expressions. But I can’t remember what one of them was. I guess they’ll need to employ three script writers to explain it to me.
Katrine makes the startling deduction that The Snowman only kills when it snows. Harry was well impressed. He offered one of his two expressions to viewers as a reward.
The serial killer also seems to know exactly what Harry is doing, while finding time to murder women who have one child and are of a certain age. In the same way that duckling follow whatever they see first, it might be a pair of Wellington boots in the snow. His mother drowning in a car and a father that was a cop and disowned him and bullied them is imprinted on her son’s mind. The grown-up Snowman will make the world pay.
Phew. That was rather a long description. Wallander would have sorted this in half the time. But his looks at more Wallace and Gromit. That would never be Fassbender enough. Watchable?
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