The Snowy Day (2016 TV Short) User Reviews

Why try to improve upon perfection?

[Jannelaine-246-989246 · 6/10 · 18 December 2021]

Snowy Day was one of the first books published about a black child/family in the US. It was pivotal. And also it was excellent.

With that in mind I understand why some, like myself, might be annoyed that there are several (very) white (and inexplicably, very jewish) characters added in. Although i appreciate there is also an Arabic man and an Asian woman in as well as other children of color. But: if you're adding in characters, why not add in the boy's father? Why does his friend have to be white? I don't want to draw conclusions- but come on. It's annoying.

Why can't we (just) have a story about a sweet little black boy exploring the wonder of snow? Because this is what the book was-and it was excellent, did i mention?!

I understand you might have had to be more creative on the length, but really, the original story was totally crowded out. If I had a nickel for every time "MAC AND CHEESE" was said... I could produce a better movie, ha.

The message added in seems forced because it is shoehorned in. But it's still a good message, so i still like the movie and will let my kids watch it. But it falls short of what the original was, ironically by adding too much in- 3/10.

BUT had i not read the original, i would give this story a 9/10. So I compromise on a 6/10.

A great first movie!

[podcast-78570 · 10/10 · 26 December 2019]

Absolutely wonderful! We watched this on Christmas Day as our 2.5 year-old's first movie. Very wholesome and perfect for that age. It also warmed mom and dad's hearts too. Very diverse cast of characters which was nice to see as well. We found a list of other good first movies that included Horton Hears a Who, Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, but a lot of those had a scene or two that we wanted to avoid...usually due to violence or suggested violence. I would highly recommend this for anyone concerned with that kind of thing. It's just plain sweet.

Great Holiday Movie

[lluvlylady · 10/10 · 22 December 2018]

Loved this Childhood Story Book as a Family Holiday Movie👏👏👏

So sweet!

[ivyelle4 · 10/10 · 23 January 2022]

What a truly lovely and sweet little movie! It's so charming, the family and friends are all so lovely, and having Boyz II Men singing on Christmas Eve adds such a wonderful layer to the story. Watch and enjoy!

There's a really sad review that calls this white supremacy for some whacked out reason. The author of the book was Jewish and grew up on a neighborhood just like this. He understood the pain of discrimination and wanted to have a book with a black boy being the central character. The movie expands on the neighborhood and neighbors (exactly like he experienced in his childhood) - absolutely nothing wrong with that. What a wonderful neighborhood full of lovely people that care about Peter. :-)

White supremacy disguised as diversity

[bwheelrae · 1/10 · 9 December 2020]

I sit down with my wife and twin 3 year old daughters to watch what my wife and I thought was a Christmas cartoon that finally had some black characters. We actually thought it was a movie about a black child and his family. My delight and anticipation was quickly replaced with disappointment as the black stereotype character of a black man walking around aimlessly singing in the snow. I had to pull out my phone to investigate who the author of this film was when Peter's, the young black boy and main character, friend was a young Jewish white girl. I was no longer surprised when my internet research resulted in discovering that this movie was written by not one but three white people. I immediately understood the placement of the white vender, the white Jewish girl, the Jewish girl's mother, the white Jewish bakery owner, the stereotypical black males singing on the street corner, nanna's mac and cheese, Peter's cousin in the barber shop and the white vender basically saving Peter's Christmas. Why couldn't Disney have hired a black author to make a holiday movie about black people? Why do white people think they can tell a story about black people when they clearly don't understand black people and resort to stereotypes and interjecting their own culture? My wife, who is white, and I found this movie offensive and my daughters were bored.

Snow is amazing, this film is not

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 16 December 2018]

"The Snowy Day" is an animated short film for the holidays that was released back in 2016 and I will spare you the list of writers and directors for this book-based movie because it is more than you'd expect for a movie tht runs for under 40 minutes. The most known cast members here are Fishburne, Bassett and King and if you take a look at the skin colors of this trio, you should not be surprised that this film features African-American characters at the center of the story. But there are Whites too and they are talking about celebrating Hanuukah on one occasions. But yeah, back to the core of this film. I think it is mediocre at best from really every perspective, regardless if we are talking about the emotional aspect, the story or the animation. The latter may be perceived subjectively, but I felt the film looked very basic and not in a good way where you could say that it was a creative decision to make this film visually as essential as possible. The voice acting is probably still among the better aspects here, but also only because the rest is nothing special and the actors are experienced enough to breath some life into the characters. Overall, oit wasn't enough though for a positive recommendation, also because in my opinion this film dragged way too much at times for a film that stays comfortably under the 1-hour mark. Music was tolerable, but not outstanding. All in all, this did not get me in the Christmas spirit. My suggestion is to skip it.