Dazlious

“Snow Cake” [dvd; 2006]

I like Sigourney Weaver so I got “Snow Cake” from Netflix and it was a totally unexpected delight. Weaver plays Linda, an autistic woman who has lost her daughter -- Linda would say she didn’t lose her, she died. Through a set of absolute rules, Linda has managed to create a precarious space for herself in her small Canadian town. Alan Rickman enters Linda’s beleaguered space as Alex, a weary, haunted soul. Carrie-Anne Moss as Linda’s neighbor provides the third side to this unlikely triangle. Midway through “Snow Cake,” Sigourney Weaver explains the rules of Comic Book Scrabble to Alan Rickman -- you can make up a word but you have to use it in a sentence. She then spells out “dazlious” and provides a description that makes it clear why this movie is itself thoroughly dazlious.

[Gem rating: Imperial topaz and fire opal -- for the “sparklies”]