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Production Notes
It’s April 2005 and the snow is melting fast in Wawa there is perceptible panic throughout the cast and crew of SNOW CAKE when they find out that this location chosen specifically for its customary frigid climate and overabundance of snow – has very little snow to speak of.
“The reason we went to Wawa in the first place was to get the snow, says director MARC EVANS with a smile. “I was very worried about not getting enough snow. And then ALAN RICKMAN, who plays Alex, said ‘Look, at the end of the day this film is not about snow. It’s got snow in the title but it’s about the people who live in this place.’ And I thought, yes, that’s so true. It’s the interaction between the two main characters that forms the thrust of the film. The joy of this film is seeing how the characters interact.”
In fact, the lack of snow may have been a blessing in disguise for the film. ‘It appears that this film is being guided by some unseen force in a way,” Rickman says. “We went to Wawa a week later than we were due to. Had we gone there the week before, we would have encountered temperatures that would have been so horrific to work in, so cold, below freezing” Instead, “we had a freak period of 13 days of unbroken sunshine, which on the face of it, with a film called SNOW CAKE, you might think would be a problem!” But Rickman had always said that the film would find itself and it did in the most beautiful way as the snow thawed around them.
The providential aspect of this tale parallels SNOW CAKE’’s early days. It’s beyond the cliché of a film that almost didn’t get made due to lack of funds, bad timing and actor availability. In fact, it had less to do with logistics and everything to do with serendipity.
The story begins with the screenwriter herself. SNOW CAKE is ANGELA PELL’s first script. The fact that it attracted no less an actor than Alan Rickman – who had an ‘instant and instinctive response’ to the story - speaks more to Pell’s talent than to the script’s karma, but fortune has an energy all its own.
After toiling away in comedy and realizing after almost a decade of rejections that “I’m just not that funny,” Pell decided to write about what she knew. Extrapolating from her experience with her seven year-old son’s autism, Pell wrote about a woman with autism (Linda Freeman played by SIGOURNEY WEAVER). Alex Hughes (RICKMAN) - urbane, cosmopolitan and British, spiritually lost and grieving two deaths - makes his way to Wawa, befriends Linda, beds her neighbour (Maggie played by CARRIE-ANNE MOSS) and begins the process of healing at the hands of someone who, at first glance, is in need of healing herself.
Pell says: “I did take on my own experience, because I live with autism and it is such a wonderful, surreal experience day to day. I thought that to put somebody in that situation would be such a great fish-out-of-water story.” She also wrote the script in two days.
Andrew Eaton from Revolution Films (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, IN THIS WORLD, TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY) received Pell’s script in Christmas 2004. She was a friend of his and for that reason, Eaton decided to set the script aside for a couple of weeks. “I think that when you get something from a friend, you’re always nervous about reading it, in case it’s really terrible and you have to tell them”, Eaton says wryly. But it wasn’t terrible. “I read it in one go and I thought it was fantastic, rang her immediately and said ‘this is really, really good. I think we could do something with this.’”