Heroes Not Zombies

Just watched Snowcake. Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman both acting superbly. She plays a high-functioning autistic adult, Linda, whose daughter has been killed in the car the Alan Rickman character, Alex, was driving. He’s a damaged soul himself having lost his son in a car crash and gone to jail for murdering someone. I won’t tell you the rest of the plot. Get the dvd and watch it.

Here’s what I like about it more than anything else. This is a story about difference. How we are all different, and in the more extreme expressions of our difference other people find us hard to accept. This is a story about acceptance of difference. There are so many unique, non-conforming, not “normal” people in this movie. So many unique and strange characters who manage to fit together……certainly not seemlessly, but well. These are people often connected only through chance happenings, with echoes of their pasts resonating in the present.

Snowflakes are all unique of course. Despite being made of the same stuff, they’re all completely different and that’s in no small part responsible for their beauty.

Here is one of my favourite scenes. The two main characters playing a game of scrabble with the rules having been made up by the autistic Linda. The rules include being able to include made-up words as long as you can demonstrate their use in a sentence. Listen to this dialogue and listen to Linda’s story of “dazlious”