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First Snow
EMAILPRINTYari Film Group Releasing

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 22 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Mark Fergus
Hawk Ostby
Directed by: Mark Fergus
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 23, 2007
DVD: November 27, 2007
Running Time: 121 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for language, some violence and sexuality
Starring Guy Pearce, Piper Perabo, William Fichtner, J.K. Simmons, Shea Whigham, Rick Gonzalez, Jackie Burroughs, and Adam Scott
Stranded after an accident outside a desolate town, Jimmy Starks (Pearce) visits a fortune teller (Simmons) to pass the time, but soon learns that his days are numbered. At first skeptical, Jimmy's world begins to unravel as the psychic's visions come true. (Yari Film Group)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
First Snow is essentially a short story with a metaphysical twist, but Pearce puts his fears more up front than any actor I can think of.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
The actors, all strong, give the lyrical but never artificial dialogue the ring of life. Pearce is riveting as a go-getter who finds himself trapped between a murky past and a future defined by ambition.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Knowledge is not always a good thing and observing how one individual handles this unusual fantasy-tinged situation provides enough compelling drama to make Mark Fergus' debut feature a source of suspense, intrigue, and philosophical musing.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Movies like First Snow rise or fall on characters and atmosphere, and Fergus gets them both. But though the story's resolution does have irony and even a certain power, it lacks the charge, the Serlingesque "gotcha," that it needs.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A haunting neo-noir about a man told by a palmist that his karma is about to run over his dogma.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
If you approach First Snow as a straight thriller, it's not terribly satisfying.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
First Snow has a fine sense of place and a small but terrific turn by veteran actress Jackie Burroughs.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
A noirish thriller that revels in ominous visual moods, deepened by Cliff Martinez's spare, shivering guitar score, this heartland "Appointment in Samarra" is a mind-teaser that speaks the flat, evasive language of its seedy characters.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Don R. Lewis
First Snow is an interesting and entertaining film. It's suspenseful and kind of scary.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
I was beguiled by both the eerie moods and the striking compositions, which incorporate large stretches of empty space.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee
First Snow is, above all else, one man's particular journey. Pearce is a valid and compelling guide but he can't carry the full load of the movie's excess baggage. For the movie to completely resonate it has to strike the spiritual-angst note through his performance. Pearce comes close but no ... well, you know.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
It's a slow, moderately involving descent into the inevitable, with Pearce gamely trying to figure what's going on. Better him than me.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The story falters only at the end, but it's the ride, not the destination, that you remember and savor the most.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Fergus' thriller benefits from Pearce's high-strung performance and the stark New Mexico landscapes, but the story is familiar and the pacing much too measured for a slight tale of ineluctable fate.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
It's déjà vu all over again for Aussie actor Guy Pearce, returning to motel rooms in the American Southwest to sort out metaphysical issues in the thriller First Snow, to somewhat less original effect than he did in "Memento."
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
A movie that clearly aims to be a cool, picturesque modern film noir becomes another moody banality.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
A neo-noir thriller long on atmosphere and short on production values.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jim Ridley
First-time director Fergus's film is more a moody, tedious anti-thriller about ineluctable fate.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
It's the script -- by director Mark Fergus (who also wrote the adapted script for "Children of Men") and Hawk Ostby -- that lets everyone down.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
First Snow tries hard but lacks originality.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Pearce is usually dependable, but here, he's utterly unconvincing as a slick phony, and the film peddles a bogus bill of goods in kind.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Craig P. gave it a7:
A great film about destiny and death with a wonderful performance by Guy Pearce.
Ken G gave it a7:
They pretty much could have made the same movie without the fortune-telling stuff, but this is an intriguing, claustrophobic study of a man becoming obsessed that someone is out to kill him, and the effect that this has on him.
Chad S. gave it a4:
If Christopher Walken sees the future (as he did in "The Dead Zone"), there's going to be music; there's going to be ham. Awards aren't handed out to filmic dreck such as "Final Destination 3", or the more recent "The Number 23" (b-movie thrillers about fate and predestination), so when a fortune teller (J.K. Simmons) intuits destiny in the form of a dirt nap for his customer (Guy Pearce), Vacaro displays your usual convulsions which normally accompanies the discovery that a customer's allotment of time is finite and fast-approaching, but "First Snow" treats this paranormal occurence as if Jimmy was in for a routine check-up. The oncoming tragedy that's implied in the fortune teller's body language is played out in silence. We're in "the real world", a genreless diegesis, the filmmaker is saying. "First Snow" should be a road movie, or take-a-plane-to-some-country-near-the-equator-movie, but Jimmy, faced with the titular phenomena of nature, induces cabin fever instead. I don't know, sometimes dreck can be fun. "First Snow" is an existential bore (but speculating about the nature of Jimmy's narration will make for a lively post-movie discussion). Give me the cheap thrills of the underrated "Final Destination 3" instead, please.
