Presagio finale - First Snow

Is it destiny or did you make it happen? Are you going to die regardless of what you do to avoid it, or do you make decisions that result in your death? This neo noir with Guy Pearce (Momento, The Proposition, L.A. Confidential) was well written and exciting from start to finish.

Pearce made a perfect sleazy salesman and Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly) has shown she can do a good dramatic role. I thought she was really good.

The story keeps you guessing until the very end. Did things happen because they were destined to happen, or did he choose to be in that place in that time.

FIRST SNOW involves a trade off. The action is slow, but there is a fairly compelling narrative. The story involves a brash young salesman who engages the services of a truck stop fortune teller, and finds that his life is nearly over. He's safe only until the first snow. Jimmy, played by Guy Pearce, must plan a course of action to determine the veracity of the prediction, and then act on his finding. FIRST SNOW creates a visual mood, and takes its' own sweet time to unfold. The film is a psychological thriller with the feel of a noirish foreign film. The two writers on this project collaborated on the far superior film, CHILDREN OF MEN, but FIRST SNOW makes a clever attempt to resolve the following conundrum. Our fate lies on whatever road we decide to take, yet nothing makes the gods laugh harder than when Man attempts to control his destiny. Guy Pearce's MEMENTO is a much better examination of the effect of predetermined events, but FIRST SNOW is certainly worth a look.

This taut little thriller, directed by first-timer Mark Fergus, is a real gripper with intelligence to spare and some seriously powerful stuff. The protagonist/anti-hero, Jimmy Starks (Guy Pearce in a role that hauntingly echoes his work in "Memento"), is a salesman/con man who easily slides in and out of legit selling and shady conning. Pearce carries this off beautifully, and is ably abetted in his downward spiraling tale by J.K. Simmons as Vaccaro, the strangely prescient soothsayer, William Fichtner as Jimmy's friend Ed, and some really great unknown actors in other supporting roles, principally the actor playing Jimmy's boss, who will hopefully go on to do more work on film (he's terrific).

Jimmy accidentally meets up with fortune teller Vaccaro who accurately predicts a win by a local college basketball team that Jimmy's bet on, as well as a windfall from an on-the-level business deal that Jimmy's involved in. What Vaccaro does not predict is the riveting, ever-darker series of events that ensue when Jimmy finds out that a former partner of his in a crooked scam, Vince, is now out on parole from a stretch in the slammer.

For my money, this is the best American noir thriller of the year so far, and would make a great addition, once it's out on DVD, to anyone's library of neo-noirs. The ending in particular is really strong--always the mark of a well-made film.

Try not to miss this. It's great.

FIRST SNOW is a relatively low budget vehicle for star Guy Pearce, attempting to plough the same sort of furrow as his superlative MEMENTO. The simplistic storyline sees the star given news of his impending death by a trailer-park psychic, at which point his life begins to unravel as he attempts to do all he can to avert impending disaster.

The story in this one is straightforward enough, but it's more of a mood piece than anything. The small town photography is excellent and there's a cast of eccentrics and seasoned professionals who help to bring the story to life; Shea Wigham, William Fichtner, and J.K. Simmons are the stand-outs here. Pearce is excellent, as he always has been, and the director builds a genuine sense of foreboding as the narrative heads for its inevitable conclusion. My only real fault is that the twist ending is way, way too obvious.

"Fate rules the affairs of mankind with no recognizable order." Seneca

Guy Pearce confirmed his cult status with his tortured Leonard of Memento. Writing notes to himself because of his serious short term memory loss, he pursues a putative killer of his wife. Now in First Snow Pearce as Jimmy Starks pursues another threat, his imminent death disclosed by a fortune teller. The theme of fate versus determinism-- Can anyone alter his destiny?-- is provocatively introduced but only partially developed beyond plot demands for someone avoiding death.

The expectations for a thematically heavy duty, time challenged thriller like Christopher Nolan's Memento are not always in Mike Fergus's First Snow, a semi-entertaining thriller slow in many parts and hardly challenging other than seeing Pearce put his indie-strange stamp on a mediocre knockoff of his most famous role. Here he displays his usual taut physical and mental persona but without any puzzling character depths other than selling old Wurlitzer juke boxes and flooring while touting shoulder-length hair and attitude incommensurate with the nowhere character he inhabits.

The New Mexico setting is just right for the new-age ambiance of the occult and existentialism. This region has had its cult status confirmed with the many UFO sightings and the starkly haunting work of Georgia O'Keefe. Chris Martinez's minimalist score punctuates the spare emotional landscape.

Jimmy's palm reader, Vacaro (a wonderfully weary J.K. Simmons), says, "I saw no more roads, no more tomorrows. But you're safe until the first snow." The script doesn't allow Jimmy to go too far beyond disbelief at this prophecy into whether or not one can be happy knowing the future. Try he will to alter that future but without intellectual resolution for the audience.

More promising is the redemption motif in which he must face a recently- released-from-prison former business partner, who went up the river because of Jimmy's testimony and who may now wish to exact his due. How Jimmy faces this prophetic return is not well enough dissected, but it remains an energetic coda to an otherwise sporadically interesting study of personal responsibility and fate.