christmas countdown #48: let it snow (2019) and the evening before everything changes
a christmas eve snowstorm gives a group of teenagers time to say what the ordinary week keeps swallowing.
t the end of school, a familiar town can start to feel like something you are already leaving. every ordinary place becomes a candidate for the last time you do a thing. that is a slightly unreasonable amount of pressure to put on a waffle restaurant.
in let it snow (2019), a christmas eve storm tangles the friendships and romances of a group of high school seniors. there is a stranded pop star, an ambitious party and enough intersecting plans to make staying home look administratively sensible.
the ensemble format means some connections have more room than others. it also catches the peculiar scale of teenage uncertainty, when a conversation that an adult might forget before dinner can rearrange the whole map. attraction and embarrassment keep interrupting everybody’s idea of the evening.
this is a modest pleasure rather than a grand seasonal revelation. its place in the countdown comes from letting young people occupy the holiday on their own terms. christmas does not belong exclusively to parents trying to rescue it, or adults returning home to reconsider a career. sometimes the event is simply getting through the room to the person you wanted to see.
why christmas matters
the snow interrupts the usual exits, while christmas eve adds the suggestion that something ought to happen before morning. the town briefly becomes a shared waiting room. that is a useful setting for people who have not yet agreed on what comes next.
the right evening
an easy ensemble-romance evening when you want a little longing without an emotional demolition. let the coincidences accumulate. number 48 is for the small possibility that an inconvenient night might give somebody a necessary opening.
image credits: cast image from Netflix Tudum; featured artwork from Netflix. Let It Snow © Netflix.
Did you enjoy this article?
Recommend it — Standard Reader surfaces well-loved writing to more readers across the network.