Snowman's Land

I can see what Thomson is getting at and even sort of appreciate it at times; the movie isn't boring, but it meanders and loses track of plot threads. Any feelings we have for the characters is muted because they all richly deserve to die at one another's hands.

Despite on-point performances (especially from the hilarious Mr. Wodianka), the story (by Tomasz Thomson, who also directs) is too pitted with holes and loose ends to permit the film a bump from meh to marvelous.

It is a credit to Snowman's Land that it's plot twists are, for the most part, not entirely predictable, nor do they ever come across as far-fetched.

Tonally, Snowman's Land feels like a German throwback to a '90s indie, but without the energy-the pacing is languid to the point of aimlessness.

The tone here is unhurried and the bursts of violence and narrative played at an aesthetic remove, but the cycles of languor and activity ultimately feel too calculated-the strained overlay of sensationalism onto a desiccated canvas.

A tonal hodgepodge ever at odds with itself, Tomasz Thomson's unctuous, tongue-in-cheek debut is far too self-satisfied with its jokes for any to really be funny.