SMILLA’S SENSE OF SNOW directed by Bille August (1997)
Despite the cool title this is strange and ultimately stupid film.
The MacGuffin surrounds an energy producing meteorite which we see coming to earth in 19th Century Greenland at the start.
In the present day, white-haired Richard Harris is the enigmatic chief baddie of a secretive organisation which is planning to harness this power as a first step to world domination.
Somehow, this far-fetched plot is connected to the mysterious death of a young Inuit boy who fell from the roof of an apartment block in Copenhagen.
Transplanted Greenlander, Smilla Jaspersen (Julia Ormond) lives in the same block and smells a rat. Her sense of snow means that she instinctively knows from the trail of footprints left by the boy that he was running from someone.
A neighbour known only as The Mechanic (Gabriel Byrne) also suspects foul play but Smilla thinks his offer of help is also prompted by wanting to get her in the sack (which he eventually does).
Smilla is a bit of a ball-breaker but shows a softer side with the mechanic. This might work if the part was played by someone like Helen Mirren but Julia Ormond is too sweet-looking to convince you that she is also be hard-nosed. She remains perfectly groomed and unflappable throughout and is curiously unaffected by sub-zero temperatures.
You could hide some massive meteorites in the numerous plot holes and the adventure gets buried as effectively as a dog turd in a snowstorm.
