NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN - Everybody loves Zhenia . . . and so do I

There is no denying that movies have always played an enormous part in my life. Hell, my life IS a movie (aren't all of ours?). I like to think I keep up with the latest and best, even (or especially) if they're not the biggest grossing, blockbuster megahits, but when a film by a director I love, making the types of movies I adore, goes five years without my even hearing of it . .  . I am humbled like ya read about. And so it was when Małgorzata Szumowska (with co-director Michel Englert)  of Elles . . . In the Name of the Father, and The Other Lamb popped up as a recommendation I was excited - and then saw its release date - 2025, and could only ask, how the hell did this happen?  

Enough about me. 

While considering the possibility that most of my friends would probably hate this movie (hate's a strong word, but sadly probably accurate. Maybe not. I hope not) Never Gonna Snow Again, is the type of film that within the first seven minutes I knew was going on my All Time Favorites List. 

It's been called uncategorizable - which is, of course, my favorite genre. An oddly perfect blend of hypnotic art film, surrealist drama, magical realism, painting arms-length psychological portraits of its characters, in a beautifully darkly comic, homogenized society that appears sterile on the outside, but really is a jumbled, gooey mess inside. The name of recent film legend David Lynch pops up  in a number of other reviews, and while I wanted to resist doing so here, I can't. Lynch's influence - intentionally or not - can be felt in numerous scenes and sequences, motifs and effects, even as Szumowska stays faithful to her own style.  Have no fear, the director is not copying Lynch, but one feels that a school perhaps is perhaps more formally developing here.  I'm all for it.  Oh, and while never preachy (the opposite of it in fact) there's also not the so subtle message about climate change, nuclear disasters, and such. Yeah. 

During a hypnotic opening sequence we watch Zhenia, a young masseur, wandering the woods carrying his massage table, as he crosses from his native Ukraine into Poland to begin a new life. At immigration headquarters, Zehnia seems to bypass the teeming crowds proceeding directly in the office of the ancient, powdery looking, skeptical head office. We learn Zhenhia was born on April 26, 1979, in Chernobyl - seven years to the day before the disaster. This detail is the key to Zhenia's story. To his personality. To his gifts. A man of few words, his answers to the officer are vague, and when asked, "What languages do you speak," he offers only a confident,"all of them."  It is during this interview we first witness Zhehnia's gift (and no, I'm not going to spoil it) and the story proper (such as it is) begins . . . to the glorious strains of Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2. It's that kind of a movie. 

We don't know how long Zhehnia has been in Poland, but clearly long enough to haved establishd a career as a well-loved, highly sought masseur in a gated community of prejudiced, uptight, upper-middle class families. These wonderful folk exist miserably in their godawful, near identical cookie cutter McMansions of gleaming white. To indicate the pretentiousness of its residents, Szumowska employs a brilliant motif; the doorbells of each home. Whenever Zhenia presses one of them, classical melodies chime away, each more nearly unrecognizable than the last: there is the aforementioned Shostakovich Waltz, the opening of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusic, and so on. 

Zhenhia's clientele have lonely, messy lives, each with a great, desperate need he alone can heal. The lonely alcoholic wife of an uncaring business man (with such annoying children); the terminal cancer patient and  his wife who've tried every possible cure who now place their last hopes into Zhenhia's beautiful, magical hands; the lonely, the dramatic, melodramatic drunk whose pathetic life revolves round her trio of beloved, but gassy bulldogs; the angry widow whose only joy stems from attempts to humiliate Zhenhia (who is, by the way, impossible to humiliate).  I can't not mention one of the hateful children in particular; a dead-eyed MDMA-making teen genius with secrets of his own. 

Szumowska's narrative, like her camera, flows dreamlike through the film's episodic vignettes, a blurry past, and shadowy forests, all which further establish Zhenia's otherness.  As so many Poles see Ukrainians only as interlopers, undesirables, and cheap labor, it's fascinating to see this young charismatic character cross that line into a not-quite Messiah-like presence makes him stand apart both from other Ukrainians and the Poles. You're not like the others seems to be the consensus by all. It is not mere coincidence Zhenia is a massage therapist; with his unusual gifts, and ease of manipulation of mind and body, there is a delicious paradox at work within the man himself.

As Zhenhia we are treated to an absolutely brilliant, screen consuming performance by Ukranian/British actor Alec Utgoff. Some may remember the actor from the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, and more recently Arkady Pashkin in a handful of episodes of Slow Horses.  In Snow, however, Utgoff shows his chops to devastating effect and it's impossible not to succomb to the magic that he infuses into Zhenhia.  It truly is a performance of magic. Sadly, despite rave reviews, the film (not surprisingly) tanked at the box office sending Utgoff back to much smaller roles in film and TV series. His performance here shows he can carry the weight of a big film on his shoulders and I can only join others moved by his Zhenia in the hopes of that happening soon. 

Never Gonna Snow Again is not a movie for everyone;  its narrative moves slowly, without a lot of dialogue and everything is revealed in almost voyeuristic glimpses. Watching it was like staring intently at a great painting of, say, Hieronymus Bosch. At first glimpse it's difficult for the eye to take in everything before it, confusing even, but . . . the longer you stare, the more amazing it appears as it unfolds. And, oh my, is this movie amazing.