Don’t expect to walk out of Snow Angels happy. Though the entire film is about love, its early bloom is only one aspect of the film’s reach. Indeed, Snow Angels is far more interested in examining love in a state of putrid rot, looking for the exact moment when love chrysalises into loathing.

Set amidst the bitter cold of a New England winter, Snow Angels is the story of three separate yet adjacent relationships. Awkward high schooler Arthur (Michael Angarano) is the pivot point around which all three stories rotate. Arthur falls in love with Lila Raybern (Juno’s Olivia Thirlby), a pretty but nerdy new girl at his school. Shy and innocent at first, their passion increases as their mutual interest in each other grows.

One of Arthur’s co-workers at the restaurant where he works as a dishwasher is Annie (Kate Beckinsale), who used to baby-sit him when he was a child. Once happily married to her high-school sweetheart, Annie is now separated while Glenn (Sam Rockwell) deals with debilitating emotional problems, alcoholism and a recent suicide attempt. Trying to turn his life around, the born-again Glenn is desperate to reconnect with his wife and their young daughter. But when he discovers Annie may have already moved on, Glenn’s depression metastasizes into cold rage.

Meanwhile, Arthur’s parents are calling it quits. His father (Griffin Dunne), a university professor, feels stifled at home and is interested in checking out the proverbial grass on the other side of the fence. Arthur’s mother (Jeannetta Arnette), a middle-aged homemaker used to a life of ease, suddenly faces the prospect of beginning anew.

Snow Angels received glowing acclaim at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, though it is difficult to see why. While well shot, with a palpable, lived-in feeling, the film lacks any sort of urgency or dynamism. Snow Angels is the sort of independent film you’ve seen or think you’ve seen a dozen times already.

The film forgets that lives flaying into tatters do not interest audiences unless they are first emotionally invested in those lives. And though the actors do a fine job (especially Rockwell who continues a welcome string of dramatic roles), they and the relationships they enter into (or fall out of) are not remotely interesting. It is not required that we like the characters with whom we spend our two hours in the dark, but we must, at the very least, find them compelling.

Though Snow Angels ends on a heartening note, it is a false uplift. While we are led to believe that young Arthur and Lila have given birth to hope and the promise of new love, we could, just as easily, rewind the film back far enough to a time when Annie and Glenn were also young and blush with fresh love, utterly unaware it would one day be consumed by grief.

Flat and undernourished, Snow Angels is nothing more than a mirror reflecting misery. Devoid of any sort of commentary, the film seems satisfied to dwell on love’s collapse as if it were a car accident you can’t help but look at.

© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.