A faceted Snow Flake.

''Being with you. Being with Linda. Being with myself again. Hey, and I'm having sex and these muffins are great. That sort of thing.''

A drama focused on the friendship between a high-functioning autistic woman (Weaver) and a man (Rickman) who is traumatized after a fatal car accident.

Alan Rickman: Alex Hughes

Snow Cake is a tale of random lives thrown together, of fateful meetings that that are almost incommunicable with mere words, of the power of surreal bonds, of characters defying what is expected of themselves and sometimes of what they would expect of themselves, and of finding a strength inside.

Sigourney Weaver is from a different frame of mind, one not unlike our rational, emotional way. She's not fighting monsters from outer space this time or living in a strange village, but the world into which she brings us is as weird, and dazzling enough for my mind to alter after watching her for just an instance. Her presence leaps off the canvas with such vividness that, even though I had read the storyline, I knew it was going to surpass my expectations. Her character is fascinated by things that sparkle, can juggle numbers with unnerving rapidity, inhabits a universe of extreme precision that brooks no infraction, and no uncleanliness: and she's only barely tolerant of our world. This is the world of Linda Freeman, high-functioning autistic.

There are two sides to Linda: the world she lives in is undoubtedly extraordinary - her version of Scrabble leaves Alan Rickman's character(Alex Hughes) looking severely uninvolved - but it is balanced by her lack of empathy for normal people like us. What makes Weaver's performance so remarkable is that she conveys the logical certitude of Linda's position with such force that we, like Alex, start feeling unintelligent. Why do we go through such irrelevant rituals after a death? Why can't we feel the joy we felt as children when we discovered snow in our hands, or the thrill of a trampoline as our body is launched into space? Why do we struggle to remember simple facts? The drawbacks of Linda's world (apart from most people not being able to reach it) is that she cannot cope with the imperfections that the rest of us would shrug off. If the dog leaves a stain on her carpet she will have simply have to 'move house', and the only kind of job she can get is one where her obsessive need for order can find a simplistic outlet (she stacks shelves in a supermarket, with mathematical precision and attention). If Rain Man was the gold-medalist of autism, Linda Freeman is simply a non-glamorized regular sportswoman, and in that she conveys a more real person than any Hollywood-ised invention.

''Neurotypic people are obsessed with having friends. I'm only trying to help you get some.''

Alex(Alan Rickman) opens the film, flicking poignantly at a small photo as he sits out a long flight. We have no clue as to whom the being in the picture is, or why he seems to be encased in his own intense thoughts. Later, we see him in a transport café, approached by a bubbly young girl who is determined to break down his wall of silence. She wants to write a book and make loads of money - by finding the right areas of pain and suffering to focus on. Her apparent insensitivity is quickly tempered when she admits she admits she needs a lift but has picked the loneliest looking person because she really thinks he "needs to talk". Alex reluctantly gives her a lift. She is soon singing the 70's rock song All Right Now at the top of her voice, but things are far from all right. One car crash and an added truckload of emotional baggage later, Alex is arriving on Linda's doorstep and destined to be her guest for more than a few hours. Our storyline is further complicated by the seductively beautiful Maggie(Carrie-Ann Moss) who has her eye on Alex. He first assumes she is a prostitute, but accepts a neighbourly invite for a meal.

Rickman is at his best. The wry tongue-in-cheek humour seen in many of his films gives way to a sardonic realism that is even funnier because it is more true to real life. A very down to earth script ensures the laughs are grounded (Love Actually but with echoes of realism), even if in most cases Rickman is principally a foil for other characters: such as when Linda likens eating snow to an orgasm or Maggie breaks off dinner because she hates having sex on a full stomach.
We soon realize that Linda's childlike behavior thinly disguises a penetrating intellect, but her intelligence doesn't enable her to solve everyday problems such as putting the trash outside. She has emotional insight, even consideration, but her world is as isolated from ours as ours is from hers, even with her ability to reel off facts and figures. One is reminded of a recent study that suggested that emotional intelligence may serve people better in the workplace than a Mensa certificate.

Rickman's character struggles with Canadian distances in a typically British manner. "It didn't look far on the map," he says dismayingly sardonic. He is out of his depth geographically and emotionally but, obsessed with his own inadequacies, is open to seeing things differently. The landscape whiteness, at first cold and unwelcoming, starts to seem beautiful. Maggie allows Alex to open emotionally whereas Linda, through the intellectual effort he makes to reach her, enables him to rationalize the process and come to terms with his feelings. Linda is a doorway to seeing things differently - "I'm half outside, half inside," she says as she hovers on the porch and we puzzle whether she is being dippy or intentionally defusing a difficult situation. The mathematical way she describes needing a hug reassures us that she is human, but by then we have learnt a whole new attitude of respect. Snow Cake is a very personal venture, not an overblown piece of money making tripe, but a story which enriches the way we see ourselves, that makes us take an instant to look within.

''It's because those glasses don't look right on your face, you have a long face and those glasses make you look shifty.''

9/10