SNOW (Rohan Fernando). 86 minutes. Some subtitles. Opens Friday (February 24). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNN
On its face, Snow is a bog-standard drama about a young woman finding her way back from a devastating trauma – with the addition of a culture-clash element. She’s a shell-shocked Sri Lankan who comes to live with relatives in Halifax after losing her home, parents and sister in the 2004 tsunami.
As the withdrawn Parvati makes her way through the strange new world of Canada, nothing happens that we haven’t seen in dozens of other low-budget character studies. But writer-director Rohan Fernando has lucked into a terrific central performance by Kalista Zackhariyas. She holds the screen with an electricity that makes even the most rote material feel full of potential.
It couldn’t have been an easy task. Fernando’s script is pretty simplistic, and his decision to cast many of the supporting roles with non-actors throws a number of key scenes off balance. (Stand-up comic Pardis Parker, as Parvati’s potential suitor, looks like he’s always waiting for someone to tell him what to do.) But Zackhariyas is so strong – and Snow so tightly focused on her character – that she keeps us watching, waiting for what happens next.
