The title is irresistible; the film less so. Summertime lovers in a perpetually frozen tundra-town, Dane DeHaan (looking like a second cousin to young Leonardo DiCaprio) and Tatiana Maslany are reaching the end point of their romance. She’s going south to study; he’s stuck in this one-sled town. (It's okay, they all have snowmobiles.) Both dealing poorly with their upcoming separation, and both easily triggered by unresolved Daddy Issues they ran away from. HIM: assaulting an abusive dad. HER: stalked by a phantom of her dead father. Passionate, when not too drunk to perform, he decompresses with chats to a friendly Polar Bear. Not strictly metaphor, BTW, she sees them chatting as does a neighborhood kid. All this wisely left unexplained by co-writer/director Kim Nguyen; magic realism that's the best thing in the pic, along with its snowy town ambience. But when the pressure of parting turns love into bickering, and bickering into flight, the limits of romance tell when their snowmobiles carry them only so far thru a wintry mountain pass and leaves them to face an oncoming blizzard. Even the shelter of a decommissioned military base fails as safe hideaway. A snowy tomb, allowing for a brief philosophical exchange with Mr. Polar Bear, briefly revives interest, but by now the two lovers come off not only self-centered, but willfully self-destructive. The film reveling in self-centered pity when a couple of internet therapy sessions could have done the trick.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Racking our brain for a good substitute. (That confiding bear makes it tough.) Watch this space.
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