A sure hand with small-town noir |If O. Henry had a darker streak and a penchant for tapping a pack of cigs on the counter of a sleazy bar, he might have come up with a story like “First Snow.”
William Sydney Porter, who took on the now-famous pen name of O. Henry for his short tales, was on the wrong side of the law himself, and liked to write about scofflaws and ex-cons. He’d been imprisoned for embezzlement before his writing career took off, but Porter didn’t seem to let bitterness creep into his optimistic, surprise-ending yarns.
The debut feature from Mark Fergus, however, never fools the viewer into expecting a sunny ending. “First Snow” star Guy Pearce talks too fast, has too many dangerous friends, and cuts far too many corners to dream of or deserve any final triumph.
“First Snow” is an appealing, assured story about fate, the past dictating the future, and the burden of illicit information. As writer and director, Fergus continues the promise he demonstrated as a screenwriting contributor to the Oscar-nominated “Children of Men.”
Pearce plays Jimmy Starks, a flooring salesman in northern New Mexico who has a motor mouth but a car in need of some motor repair. Stuck for a day in a nowhere ‘burg, he pays to have his fortune told at a roadside flea market.
This is the scene that sells the movie. If it didn’t work, wasn’t skillfully acted by true pros, the entire premise would fall apart. J.K. Simmons, most famously of “Spider-Man,” is the quiet, kindly outdoorsman who takes Starks into his trailer to learn his fortune.
Simmons is more shaman than gypsy, reluctantly informing Starks that his life will end soon, after some initial business success. Jimmy scoffs, of course, but fortunetellers rarely make it to Hollywood without getting something right.
Pearce’s performance makes us wonder again why he hasn’t become a more mainstream star in America after the success of “L.A. Confidential.” Perhaps his face is too gaunt, his eyes too intense. He can certainly pull off being a leading man, but here and in “Memento,” he seems more comfortable playing a man of equal parts charisma and doom.
Fergus lends more atmosphere and urgency to the proceedings by adding a meteorological coda to Jimmy’s fate: His comeuppance will occur along with the first snow of the season, and Jimmy drives most of the movie through blustery skies and talk-radio forecasts of impending blizzards.
“First Snow” is well cast for a rookie effort, with William Fichtner (“Black Hawk Down”) as one of Jimmy’s sales partners and Piper Perabo as his bewildered girlfriend.
The mix is satisfying small-town noir, a gloomy portent of a talented career for Fergus. If fate cannot be escaped, then it was a kindly eye that wrote out a filmography for the young director.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at mbooth@denverpost.com.
| “First Snow”
R for sexual situations, strong language and violence|1 hour, 41 minutes|PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER|Directed by Mark Fergus; written by Fergus and Hawk Ostby; photography by Eric Alan Edwards; starring Guy Pearce, William Fichtner, Piper Perabo, J.K. Simmons, Jackie Burroughs, Shea Whigham|Opens today at the Esquire Theatre
