Review: Snowdrops

Snowdrops, the debut novel by A.D. Miller (current editor for The Economist) shortlisted earlier this year for the Man Booker award, is a superb character study that simultaneously paints a vibrant picture of the oil-rich and over-banked Moscow of the mid-2000’s. For someone about to embark in career of corporate law it’s also harrowing.

Snowdrops’ protagonist, Nick Platt, is a mid-30’s ex-pat corporate attorney in the “Wild West” years of Moscow. It’s the heyday of 2000 boom and money is flowing into Moscow as fast as oil wells are drilled. Nick’s law firm facilitates loans to quasi-gangster/quasi-corporate companies popping up throughout the country, and during his stint overseas, Nick becomes romantically involved with a beautiful Russian, Masha, and her sister. The sisters slowly involve Nick (or Kolya, as they call him) in a scheme which evolves as the novel pushes along, with Miller skillfully conveying the frozen Moscow wasteland, debauched nightlife, and moral ambiguity of the period throughout.

I recently read a negative review of Snowdrops which claims that the “twist” comes too soon; because the reader knows what Nick does not so early in the novel, Snowdrops, as a “thriller”, fails. Perhaps as a “thriller” Snowdrops is a failure. But the reviewer misses the point. Snowdrops is not a “thriller”, not really. The schemes involved are not particularly elaborate, and as the reviewer notes, are telegraphed early in the novel. Instead the real question the reader grapples with throughout is how an educated British corporate lawyer became so easily duped. In answering the question we circle back to why I found Snowdrops so harrowing.

Nick is not a particularly engaging character and maybe that’s why his decisions throughout the novel are so fascinating. There is no indication of much in the way of a personality; while the book reads as a manifesto of his descent in moral ambiguity (written to his current wife (finance?)) we get no sense of character behind Nick’s words. He has no true friends (sans an alcoholic reporter and a superior at his firm), and has a strange and awkward relationship with his family. Akin to his Russian surroundings he is cold and passionless. This is what I think the book is largely getting at – Nick is a man going through the motions; no purpose, and no love. There is one moment in novel when he mentions he may not make partner in his law firm, but it is a throwaway. His relationship with Masha, no matter how fabricated, gives his life a spark worth writing about; she takes him to clubs, involves him in threesomes - she makes him feel needed and loved. Far from the life of a mid-30’s corporate attorney, Masha makes Nick feel young, with a life ahead really worth living. His relationship with Masha, coupled with the allure of Moscow, are an oasis which Nick, as shell of man (no matter how educated), is willing to to keep alive, even if it means jettisoning reality and rationality.

Snowdrops left me sympathetic with Nick’s decisions, at least in some respects. That alone is troubling. You pity Nick. You wonder how many lives play out in this world along the same lines. Ninety hour weeks of diligence for a transaction that may never happen. That shot at partnership for ten years of silence. Moscow, in all its fake glitter, fake wealth, and fake smiles, gave Nick two years more truly alive then London could give him in a lifetime as a corporate attorney. Even in the face Nick’s moral’s decisions, when Masha’s ploy has long been laid out in front of him, when the time for willful blindness has ended, Nick yearns for Moscow, for Masha.

What does it say when you’d knowingly accept a forged life in place of your own? Snowdrops is no thriller. At least not for me.

Finally, an Iraq War movie actually about the war

Movie-going audiences haven’t seen much from director Kathryn Bigelow since 2003’s box office flop K9: The Widowmaker, when Harrison Ford unhappily took home the statue for “worst accent in the history of film” (previously held by Keanu Reeves for his “British” accent in Dracula). The Hurt Locker, set to be released next month in New York and Los Angeles, should change all that.

Over the past few years studios have shied away from greenlighting any film that even touches on the Iraq War and for good reason - they’ve all been financial disasters. Curiously, they’ve also not actually been about the war. Case in point: Grace is Gone, starring John Cusack as a father struggling to tell his daughter about the death of her mother in Iraq. Picked up at Sundance in 2007 by the Weinstein Co. for four million dollars, it failed to break the million dollar mark worldwide. Home of the Brave, another Iraq-vet flick this time starring Jessica Biel (how realistic!) and Samuel L. Jackson only brought in half of that. In the Valley of Elah, Paul Haggis’ much ballyhoed follow-up to Crash (my pick for the least-deserving Best Picture Winner in Academy history) failed to recoup even one-third of its costs. A pattern starts to emerge. Nothing quite spells ‘immediate cash black hole’ to studios these days than an Iraq War Movie. But these films failed because they were inherently political. They either argued against stop-loss, George Bush, or the war itself. Americans get enough of that at home. They wake up to that. When people go to the movies they’re not looking for a rant from Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann (or at least I hope not).

The Hurt Locker, which recieved a ten minute standing ovation in Venice, follows a three person Explosive Ordnance disposal unit (EOD for short), and brings along no political baggage. This is a film about soldiers who have one of the worst jobs on earth – they diffuse IEDs. Filmed in Jordan, often just miles from the Iraqi border, The Hurt Locker is grab-the-person-next-you intense. There are scenes so nail-bitingly taut and immersive that you’re almost compelled to turn and run out of the theater (kind of like the guy stumbling on screen in full body armor, screaming at everyone to move out of the blast radius). Bigelow employs a shaky, docu-drama approach to directing (Hollywood’s latest crutch to mask small budgets and poor acting) which fits here perfectly. You end up feeling akin to an embedded journalist. Bigelow intelligently chooses relative unknowns for the main characters (though Ray Fiennes and Guy Pearce make quick appearances) and they’re uniformly excellent. Jeremy Renner, who plays James, an aplomb, replacement staff sergeant, is the standout of the film. As a bomb technician, he works an impossible job, and unfortunately he’s very good at what he does (in one particularly harrowing scene he’s forced pull an IED out of the gut of a dead child). In a notable sequence, as James is set to defuse a roadside bomb, a car rolls up on his position. He puts down his gear and pulls his side arm, shouting at the driver while motioning for him to turn around. The man doesn’t understand English, and James doesn’t understand Farsi (a common thread throughout the film), so James shoots out the front window (after having stuck the gun to the driver’s temple). The car backs up and US troops pull him from his car. James laughs, saying something along the lines of “Well, if he wasn’t an insurgent, he sure is now.” It’s a sad, hopeless scene, and Renner pulls it off brilliantly.

The Hurt Locker is the best war film I’ve seen in years and easily outshines the handful of Iraq movies Hollywood's put out. The film is both helpless and heroic; a testament to the immersive and visceral power of film.

And the Damages Keep Rolling In

After a year long hiatus, Damages returned last night to FX. Academy Award winner Glenn Close, the fabulous Rose Byrne (huge crush in this corner), and a top-of-his-game Tate Donovan, are joined this season by William Hurt, Timothy Olyphant, and Marcia Gay Harden, among other notables. How can a TV cast get better than that? I have no idea.

The second season starts off in a similar fashion to the first. There’s a six-month flash forward in which we see Parsons (Rose Byrne) calmly threatening to kill someone with a glass of bourbon in one hand, and pistol in the other. Obviously, this isn’t going to be Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), because the brother writing team of Kessler and Kessler are just too damn smart for that. Damages thrives on its twist and turns, fantastic acting (Byrne and Close play off each other to perfection), and crisp, often film quality direction. My immediate guess would be Olyphant’s character, Ellen’s skeezy, anger counselling partner (remember her husband’s recent murder), but again, this is probably too obvious. As the first season showed us, there are always quite a few pieces still missing to the puzzle, often until the final act.

Last night also saw the welcome return of Zeljko Ivanek (who won an Emmy for his performance last year), if only for a brief moment. Who cares that he was last seen blowing his brains out all over Patty’s chic office? I sure don’t. Ted Danson’s loathsome Arthur Frobisher also puts in a quick appearance, drawing both sympathy and disgust. I’ve read that he doesn’t show up in the second episode, but I hope it’s not the last we hear of him. He’s a richly layered character, like most in the show, and it would be a shame to lose him. While Damages might not be the most intelligent of the legal shows (I’m looking at you The Wire) it’s certainly better than 90% of the crap out there. It’s also got a hell of a title sequence, which I link below.