THE opening gala at the Berlin Film Festival, which starts tonight, is a baffling declaration of intent. I’ve never seen anything as modest as the British art-house film Snow Cake taking pole position at a leading festival.

Its earnestness certainly matches the tone of such other Berlin entries as George Clooney’s Middle East thriller Syriana and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the murder-obsessed author in Capote. But why not open with the Oscar-hot Heath Ledger, of Brokeback Mountain fame, as a heroin addict in Candy, or Michael Winterbottom’s The Road to Guantanamo Bay, about three British men at the US detention camp?

Snow Cake, on its world premiere at the festival, has the va-va-voom of an electric milk float. Its two stars are old pros, but neither has driven a hit for years, and it shows.

Alan Rickman is a rusty ex-con called Alex. He crosses the frozen wastes of Canada in a hired car to bury old ghosts. He picks up a young hitch-hiker who can’t stop talking nonsense. Alex pulls up at a T-junction, and the car is promptly demolished by a ten-ton truck. His beautiful passenger is pulled out of the wreck in bits. Rickman emerges without a scratch. Plagued by remorse, he seeks out the girl’s mother, Linda (Sigourney Weaver), and the film starts motoring in earnest.

In fact it’s so worryingly earnest that you begin to doubt the small, clever pleasures. There is humour in Marc Evans’s chamber piece, but you need a lawyer to extract it.

Linda is a lonely, autistic woman in a nosy little town, and Weaver plays the part with manic, bug-eyed ferocity. She tackles the role as if it were an assault course in method acting and mannerisms — it’s a thankless watch. Psychologically, Linda is an eight-year-old girl with a short temper, a dislike of others and an alarming number of anal tics. The cleanliness of her kitchen is the most important feature of her life. The death of her daughter is a tedious and tragic distraction.

Why does this strange man (Rickman) want to help with the funeral? Why doesn’t he just bounce up and down on the trampoline in the back garden? Or make snow cakes that melt in the mouth?

Linda’s child-like grasp of reality, and Alex’s guilt, is the tearful weave. It’s a joy to see Rickman sink his teeth into a complex hero after endless cardboard turns. His mouth is a thing of wonder: it seems to have a droll life of its own. The rest of his face is a quiet, craggy blank. His bumbling relationship with the local siren (Carrie-Anne Moss) is a forgiveable indulgence.

Not so the film. Snow Cake has much to recommend it, not least because it is British. But this is art-house drama in a very minor key. There is a serious lack of big-screen charisma, and precious few bold and daring strokes. It’s astonishing to see an international festival — let alone one as prestigious as Berlin — mislay the sturm und drang quite so early in the day.

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010