Let it Snow: A Review

Let It Snow: a Christmas movie filled with a whirlwind of stories, teenage angst & emotions and most importantly, drama.

CRAMMED: Let it Snow; the movie attempting to follow 5 storylines in a mere span of 92 minutes. (Photo: Vital Thrills)

Let it Snow (2019), is a movie based on the New York Times bestseller novel by Maureen Johnson, John Green, and Lauren Myracle. The movie itself follows the perspective of multiple teenagers from the same, small midwestern town:

Julie, played by Isabela Merced, who meets a famous singer named Stuart, played by Shameik Moore.

Tobin, played by Mitchell Hope, whose character is in love with Angie, more commonly known as ‘The Duke’, played by Kiernan Shipka.

Dorrie, a waitress, played by Liv Hewson, who is in love with a cheerleader, Tegan; played by Anna Akana.

Keon; played by Jacob Batalon, and Billy; played by Miles Robbins, who goes on a pursuit to start a party, for a reason that is quite vague and never confirmed.

And to top it all off, a woman labeled as the ‘Tin Foil Woman’, played by Joan Cusack.

Seems overwhelming? With the sheer number of “protagonists,” this movie seems to have, the plot does get complicated and hard to follow. It shifts between storylines jarringly, and it does not leave much room for character development, ultimately leaving plot holes and confusion for the viewers.

I, myself, found the story to be quite dry after half an hour into the movie, as it failed to provide context for most of the characters. Even if it did attempt to provide context, it did not show how strong the relationships were between the characters, and it simply told viewers straight-forward labels instead of showing the bond the characters had.

Take Dorrie and Addie for example. In the movie, we were only told they were ‘best-friends’, but there was never any instance where it truly showed how strong their relationship was. Their entire interaction was primarily random and questionable.

At the start of the movie, Dorrie and Addie establish that Addie has suspicion that her boyfriend might be cheating on her. Dorrie blames Addie’s suspicion on paranoia, which makes Addie offended, leading to a blowout. All this happens in Dorrie’s car, where Dorrie is supposedly bringing Addie to see something special relating to Dorrie’s Christmas gift to Addie.

However, the squabble turns out to be more heated than expected, which ends up in Addie leaving the car sooner than expected to look at her supposed ‘Christmas gift’, which turns out to be a pig. The squabble is then barely addressed in the movie and the gift of the pig is never explained.

Everything else about Dorrie and Addie was then depicted in a cliché manner; with the typical ‘best-friend fallout’ and then at the end, an ‘I-want-my-best-friend-back’ moment.

NO CONTEXT: At the end of the movie, Addie and Dorrie make up all because “they’re best friends” - what? (Photo: Polygon.com)

The other ‘protagonists’ experience the same cliché ending - predictable, dry, and for the most part, boring.

As someone who has read the book ‘Let It Snow’, I find the book’s structure of telling the stories to be more fluid. Furthermore, it is more in-depth and it allows the readers to get to know the characters before jumping into scenarios.

But that isn’t the only difference the book provides - parts of the plot between the book and movie are also different. And personally, I prefer the book’s plot much more.

With the book, it provides way more context about the characters as compared to the movie. Let’s use Julie, the first character we are introduced to in the movie, as an example.

In the movie, we are introduced to Julie as she wants to buy an elf figurine for a mother desperately - for a reason that is not clarified, even till the end of the movie. The scene itself was so abrupt and really random, which left me with more questions than context.

Whereas in the book, we are given a background about Julie and her family; how they have been collecting figurines for many years, how the figurines are rare and collectibles, how Julie’s parents are huge fans of collecting the figurines, and how Julie’s parents are constantly ensuring they have each piece of the collection of figurines.

Although the movie does have its downfalls, it has a positive side to it too. The stand-out factor of the movie would definitely be its actors. Most of the actors in Let It Snow have been praised for their acting in previous films before. Jacob Batalon, for his performance as Ned Leeds in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Liv Hewson for her role in Santa Clarita Diet, and Odeya Rush, for her role in Dumplin’ and Ladybird - just to name a few.

The actors, in my opinion, were convincing and good at translating the character’s emotions and thoughts onto the film. But, there’s only so much good acting can do when the actual storyline is subpar, vague and choppy.

But if you have an open mind and are into watching Christmas clichés, I think this movie would be suited for you. However, if you’d rather watch a movie following the lives of less than 5 characters, I would suggest giving Let It Snow a pass. Rating: 2/5