La reine des neiges

Although a fine production with top notch visuals, Snow Queen ultimately is a disapointment. Too long and miscast in several roles, the main problem is the opening hour which sets up a love story between Gerda and Kai. In the original, the main thrust of Gerda's quest to rescue Kai from the Queen was friendship that was revealed to be love at the end, but casting the leads as 18 year olds defeats that revelation.

This 3-hour made-for-TV miniseries came home with us from Blockbuster's this weekend. The production company clearly spent a lot of money on sets, costuming (Bridget Fonda, especially), and special effects (including a great Jim Henson talking polar bear & reindeer). They should have spent a bit more money getting a coherent script. The story line was so loose that it really never came together. One can overlook Irish-accented Germans, but not herky-jerky storytelling. With senseless loose ends which included a special guest appearance by the Devil, this one is certainly not destined to be a Christmas Classic. A shame that they wasted good performances by the two female leads.

My main attraction was that I absolutely love the original Snow Queen story and always have done, for me it is one of Hans Christian Andersen's best stories. So naturally I would see any adaptation of it, regardless of the company or who was in it. I was a little dubious though as for me Hallmark's output have been a very mixed bag. The good news is that while it is miles away from being perfect Snow Queen is really quite decent and one of Hallmark's better efforts.

It does have a number of good things. The best asset is by far the visuals. The scenery, settings and lighting look absolutely stunning, easily one of Hallmark's best-looking movies, and the Snow Queen's costumes and make-up are an absolute knockout. The cinematography is basic and maybe some of the slow-motion shots get too much and unnecessary, but on the most part it is focused and fluid. The music score is very good also, it has the sparkling motifs that you'd associate with a fantasy score, the darker moments have a haunting musical undercurrent and it does all this without ever sounding generic.

Snow Queen's lead performance I did think were quite good. The acting honours do go to Bridget Fonda who I think is wonderful as the Snow Queen. She looks breathtakingly beautiful, and while she is cold and icy at points she also has a humane side which she delivers with a surprising amount of pathos. Jeremy Guilbaut showed a lot of potential as Kai, he does bring genuine character and natural intensity to him proving that he is more than just a pretty face. Chelsea Hobbs is a little bland to start with, but I didn't worry too much actually as it fitted with the "character going on a journey"(literally and in character development) and later on she is easier to warm to.

Oh and before I forget, I was surprised by how good the special effects were, the reindeer and the polar bear looked great. Snow Queen began and ended well, the darker moments providing a lot of promise for the telling of such a timeless story.

Unfortunately, for all the good things that Snow Queen it does also have debits. The rest of the acting is uneven though with one exception nobody is exactly bad. That exception though is Kira Clavell's Summer Princess, who acts and sounds like she is participating in a high-school production. But the main problems are the script, the pacing and the story. The script once the darkness shifts dissolves into anachronism and modern vernacular, which against the production values proved to be quite a stilted mismatch.

At this point as well, the pacing does get tedious and save for some inspired moments never really picks up- some of the action sequences like with the Summer Princess' minions and the Autumn robbers are quite nifty though-, which is a shame considering how promising the beginning and end proved to be. The story showed a lot of potential and I personally did find Gerda and Kai's love for one another and together convincing, which took a nosedive in the tone shift. For a programme of this length, I was disappointed at how forced the Autumn scenes seemed to be and by how certain events were introduced but never explained satisfactorily and consequently coming across as confused instead.

So in summing up, Snow Queen was decent and watchable with the art direction being the best thing about it, but there were a number of things that stopped it from being great. 6/10 Bethany Cox

In the late 1800s the daughter (Chelsea Hobbs) of a hotel owner in a town in the Great Northwest becomes enamored with the bellboy, Kai (Jeremy Guilbaut). When an icy-but-beautiful woman known as the Snow Queen (Bridget Fonda) whisks him away, Gerda (Hobbs) seeks to find him & free him after she amazingly enters the parallel realm of the Snow Queen. But, first, she has to struggle through Spring, Summer and Autumn and the challenges thereof.

"Snow Queen" (2002) is a Hallmark production that runs 12 minutes shy of 3 hours and was based on the original fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, which was first published in two parts in 1844-1845. Elements from another folktale about the four seasons were mixed into the brew.

This is an Americanized version of the fairy tale with the events taking place somewhere out West in the USA or Canada, both of which are (North) America. The film was shot in British Columbia and takes place there or anywhere in the Great Northwest in the late 1800s (or early 1900s). It definitely doesn't take place in Denmark since (1) there are snowcapped mountains in the background and (2) everyone speaks English. I suppose someone could argue that it takes place in either Norway or Sweden, but that doesn't resolve the English-speaking issue (unless you simply imagine the characters speaking a Scandinavian language).

The long movie's worth catching just to see Bridget in her last role before marrying notable composer Danny Elfman and starting a family. Hobbs doesn't personally trip my trigger, but she's a'right. Guilbaut is bland, but serviceable. The movie comes alive whenever Fonda is present.

Most of the first half is rooted in reality and is quite good for a TV production, but the mid-section focuses on Gerda's misadventures journeying through Spring, Summer and Autumn while Kai is captive in the Snow Queen's stronghold on top of a mountain guarded by a talking polar bear. The entire middle of the picture cuts back-and-forth between these two stories with a few sequences in reality thrown in for good measure, the latter involving the father at the hotel (Robert Wisden) and his cook, Minna (Wanda Cannon).

In Gerda's quest the characters come-and-go like a rollercoaster ride. It's reminiscent of the Neverland sequences in "Hook" (1991). If you like fairy tales like "Snow White and the Huntsman" (2012) or episodic fantasies like "The Odyssey" (1997), "Ulysses" (1954) and "The Lords of the Rings" trilogy (2001-2003) give this a look; just remember it was made on a TV budget and there's not a lot of swashbuckling, as with those other productions.

The film runs 2 hour, 48 minutes and was shot entirely in British Columbia (Cranbrook, Fort Steele & Vancouver).

GRADE: C+/B-

I bought this film thinking it was a foreign import that I had seen many years ago, but nonesuch was the case. The film I was looking for was "The Polar Bear King", a Norwegian production dealing with a very similar story about a young princess searching for her abducted prince.

"Snow Queen" however, is not set in the middle ages, but circa 1900 in the cold reaches of a Nordic landscape (even though everyone speaks English). We're presented with a sprawling magical epic of young love challenged by the callous heart of a queen who herself seeks to conquer what she already had, but failed to see.

There's a lot of subtext and other themes going on here. We see the Snow Queen, and witness her cold manifest itself on both physical, emotional and even spiritual levels. She goes forth and sees that another wants, and covets another's possession. She exercises her power, and so our tale begins. Is she really evil and cold, or is there something missing from her life? Perhaps there's even more to her that we as yet fail to discover? Again, the story reveals all.

During the unfolding of the tale our young protagonist ventures forth into a realm that lies "straight on til morning", to borrow from Disney's "Peter Pan". There she meets eccentric antagonists and other characters, mostly female, and mostly with an agenda. Our young heroine must brave, challenge and escape those who pose a roadblock to her ultimate objective.

The production values are the usual top notch from Halmark. They don't spare expense when it comes to filming their intimate epics, nor do they waste money on extravagance that will not be used nor seen. We see a town that's in transition from becoming a small intimate affair where everyone knows everyone else, to becoming more of almost a small city ready to latently embrace the industrial revolution that's occurred in the outside world. We see vast wastes of snow capped mountains, and lush green forests and gardens. We see bandits and soldiers and a whole feast of visuals as our gallant heroine moves from one episode of her adventure to another.

The cinematography is basic, but unlike a lot of other made for TV movies, is not bland for the sake of expediency. The camera angles are a bit more dynamic and inspired, but not quite the caliber of theatrical release. A combination of good camera usage and quality art direction gives the audience a very sumptuous TV film production.

My critique is that it's not the film I wanted, but I enjoyed it for what it was. It's an American film made for American audiences based on some Scandinavian folklore, in regards to a tale that has some role reversal from the familiar tale of Gilgamesh.

Everything aside, it is worth a night's viewing if you have nothing better to do.

Enjoy.