by MATTHEW HAYS

Given the huge influence of the movies on our lives, it is not surprising that most people get their knowledge of autism from the 1988 movie Rain Man, in which Dustin Hoffman played a savant (and won an Oscar for it). Given the burgeoning rate of the condition— one out of every 166 children born now falls somewhere on the autism spectrum—it’s little wonder that filmmakers are introducing more autistic characters.

Snow Cake is one of those films, a British-Canadian co-production that, thankfully, neither plays autism for cheap laughs nor romanticizes it. In the film—and there are key plot twists I’ll try not to reveal—Alan Rickman plays an emotionally damaged man who is heading through chilly northern Ontario. He ends up connecting with Sigourney Weaver, who plays an autistic woman. Rickman must try to navigate his way through her household without upsetting the fragile Weaver, who obsesses over cleanliness, how the boots are arranged by the door and shiny objects. The two form a tenuous emotional bond, as Rickman plans his next move. In the meantime, he begins to get to know other townsfolk, as we learn more about his past.

The stranger-in-a-small-town melodrama is a tricky subgenre, and, for the most part, Welsh director Marc Evans does a good job of avoiding obvious pratfalls of pathos. As I watched the film, I couldn’t help but think that it seemed the screenwriter was gently parodying the clichés of English Canadian cinema—after all, this film has emotionally impotent male characters (Rickman and Callum Keith Rennie), an ambiguous closure and even a supporting performance by vet Jayne Eastwood— but then I learned that Snow Cake was written by a Brit, Angela Pell.

Snow Cake is lifted from being a simply okay movie by two things: Pell has an autistic child herself, and that means she’s written this with the heart and experience of someone close to her subject. Thus, it never comes across as exploitative. And Weaver’s performance is a standout—a tribute to her keen acting skills, she leaves you thinking about her character and the challenges she faces long after leaving the cinema.

Snow Cake opens Friday, Dec. 15

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