The Snow Sister Parent Guide

It’s a blue Christmas for Julian (Mudit Gupta). The summertime death of his sixteen-year-old sister, Juni, has left his family stunned with grief. His parents won’t talk about their loss, his little sister, Augusta (Bal Advika), can’t sleep in her own bed, and there’s no sign of Christmas anywhere in their home.

And then Julian meets Hedvig (Celina Meyer Hovland).

Friendly, bubbly, and a chatterbox extraordinaire, Hedvig is determined to be Julian’s friend and even his painful reserve thaws in the face of her enthusiasm. Soon they are drinking hot chocolate at her gloriously decorated home and making a snowman. Swimming and skating activities follow and as their friendship blossoms, Julian finds himself sharing his feelings of grief and loss. There’s just one catch: Hedvig won’t say anything about her life and doesn’t introduce Julian to any of her family members. There’s a mystery here – and it just might end their friendship.

The Snow Sister is not what I expected. I was anticipating the usual saccharine Christmas tripe, overly full of gaudy decorations and chirpy messaging. That’s because I wasn’t paying attention to the movie’s source: this isn’t a Hollywood film; it comes from Norway and those Scandinavians know how to go dark.

Underneath this production’s lovely decorations is a serious story of grief, loss, forgiveness, and resilience. Juni’s death has scarred her family and none of them are able to help each other grieve. Julian wants to remember; his parents want to forget. Only when he spends time with Hedvig is he able to process Juni’s loss and figure out how to move on in his life. As for Hedvig, her issues are deeper and more complicated.

This is a difficult film to critique because the story turns on a plot twist, and if I go any further, I’ll give it away. Suffice it to say, I spent a good part of the plot trying to figure out which way it was going to go. I guessed at the outcome, but I was never completely certain that was the answer. Frankly, in the predictable world of children’s cinema, that’s about as good as it gets for parents.

I realize my comments are somewhat ambiguous, so let me get down to the basics. This film is sometimes mildly scary, mainly for thematic reasons because there is no violence on screen. Any kid who can sit through a Disney film or a Marvel movie can definitely make it through The Snow Sister. The film really only has two problems: first, the initial 20 minutes are slow and annoying, and second, the dubbing quality is mediocre.

On the bright side, this production gets winter right. I think the snow is real and the kids look cold, with red noses and heavy woolly clothes. Julian even puts a helmet on to go skating – something I’ve never seen in Hollywood but which you can bet my kids did before heading out on the ice. Best of all, The Snow Sister is something different, in a genre of children’s Christmas films that are all pretty much the same. It’s sometimes dark, occasionally existential, and could make kids think. That might not be a kind of difference that you enjoy, but at least family audiences have a choice.