It Snows in Benidorm (2020) User Reviews

Overlong, but watchable.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 6/10 · 22 November 2023]

After years of faithful service to The Bank, Peter Riordan is given early retirement, first on his list list is a break with his brother in Benidorm, only he isn't there, he does however encounter his brother's business partner Alex.

It wasn't quite what I was expecting, or maybe not what I'd hoped for, but it was a relatively enjoyable movie. At two hours, it's over long, and there are some scenes that are painfully slow, but the story itself is interesting, and watching Peter unravelling his brother's disappearance is enjoyable.

It owes a lot to the brilliance of Timothy Spall, who elevates the film quite a lot. Sarita Choudhury was very good also, she had a definite presence.

I can understand why some say it doesn't really go anywhere, and for some I can see that it could frustrating, but as a character study, it's quite enjoyable.

6/10.

Fading into banality

[santifersan · 4/10 · 3 June 2023]

It starts off well, but gradually descends into banality as the viewing time progresses, as elements are introduced that disregard the Chekhov's gun principle. It simply confuses. The standout is Timothy Spall's character, an innocent man who believes his brother is still as dull as ever when it comes to enjoying life, but upon arriving in Benidorm to visit him, he finds that nobody will tell him where he is. It's a compelling plot that maintains good suspense, and the character's dramatic scenes capturing the essence of Benidorm are also commendable, but that device loses its quality in the second half of the film and becomes tiresome. Nonetheless, Benidorm strikes me as an ugly, extremely ugly city, and this movie has only increased my aversion towards it.

However, not all of the film is shot in Benidorm. The part where they showcase the abandoned amusement park is actually the Pola Park, a children's amusement park located in Santa Pola, where I used to go every summer as a child.

Weak...

[RosanaBotafogo · 6/10 · 31 July 2022]

I liked this setting, it started sincere, narrated, introducing the protagonist and his peculiarities, tried to keep a mystery/suspense about the brother, but it didn't work very well, we know a little about the Bernidorm culture, however nothing very attractive besides, the story becomes dragged and long...

2 hours of poor storytelling.

[donteventhink · 1/10 · 30 March 2022]

The film seems to think puking out poor symbolism one after the other will automatically grant a commendable film. Just because you have symbolism doesn't mean the story should be forgotten. The ending is possibly one the worst Ive come across, nothing gets resolved, the characters don't undergo any development but rather stay how they were from the beginning and the film just abruptly ends.

I will admit, the first 20 or so minutes seemed enticing enough to continue but after that I began reevaluating why I was sitting in the cinema theatre in the first place. It's a shame because both Timothy Spall and Sarita Choudhury are very talented actors and this was just a wasted opportunity.

Aimless and listless drama ' thriller'

[dweston-38669 · 17 November 2023]

This starts off as one film and ends another, with a change mid way through; something I would find interesting but here it's taxing and very boring.

The usually reliable Timothy Spall is solid but I can help but feel he's getting more typecast as lonely, gruff middle aged men- see Mr Turner, Mrs Lowry and Son, The Last Bus and TVs The Sixth Commandment, that I could tell which direction his character would take .

I feel it would work best as a straightforward drama of a drab and lonely man ' finding himself' in Benidorm, with romance blossoming.

The stranger in a stranger land concept worked best with Tim Roth in 'Sundown', this could have aimed for that. Even a 'About Schmidt' plot would work.

The thriller aspect doesn't catch fire and is too slowly paced, doesn't grip either.

Poetic audiovisual language

[aleskander · 7/10 · 14 December 2020]

Coixet tríes bravely a new poetic film with some good points (Sylvia Plath in the old fishermen' s Benidorm), but losing rhythm and falling inadvertedly in some image and lyric topics

slow and a bit boring

[jimbob255 · 2/10 · 6 April 2021]

Looks good but very slow paced and the ending was terrible. I love Tim spall and would watch him in anything. A real shame as the film starts well and story line ws pretty good but nothing really happens and then it ends !

Not as bad as people think.

[scsi-81010 · 6/10 · 18 November 2023]

I actually enjoyed this. My wife and I were working from home and looking for something to put on in the background, stumbled across this on Netflix and thought we'd give it a go.

I like Tim Spall as an actor and he doesn't disappoint here. His growth as a character is easily the most compelling thing about the film. That and the soundtrack which is glorious.

I especially enjoyed the mugging scene in which mild mannered Peter, who never would have said boo to a goose before, stands up to the would be mugger and gives him a solid punch across the face, even asking if he was alright afterwards.

Yes it can be slow in places, but give it a chance. Not everything in todays Cinema has to be action packed and hyper edited.

I couldn't wait for it to end, so i could do housework.

[billy-halliday · 2/10 · 15 November 2023]

I like Timothy Spall as a actor and the fact i live near Benidorm made it a bit more interesting for me looking for cast extra's i know. The film started off great and then nothing happened. If anything it confused my as to why someone would spend such a budget and why Tim accepted this lead role.

Some of the scenes were plastic looking compared to the real life Benidorm, especially in the nightclub areas, it made the movie look like, almost amaturish. God knows why it was nominated, as after he arrives in Spain and realises his brother is missing, nothing else worth substance really happened. It got really boring, really quickly. It was so exciting, i couldn't wait till the end to start some housework.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film of a career banker coming out of his shell

[BogotaBoy · 7/10 · 14 May 2022]

Some reviews said too slow. I found it reasonabke as Tim Spall wanders through different paths in search if his missing brother and surprising discoveries as well as himself. The finality as it all does not matter as much as comfy sunsets at the beach. I like the way so much is revealed at the end. Enjoy my friends..consulted adds to the interest.

Done better in other films.

[samnaji-15383 · 3/10 · 16 November 2023]

I get what the director and writer Isabel Coixet was trying to accomplish with It Snows in Benidorm. The idea was to create an ethereal story about a fish-out-of-water gentlemen who gets a new lease of life. The story about finding a missing brother is just a McGuffin. Nothing is resolved and that story just plays in the background as an excuse to meet new characters.

The problem with the film is not just the pacing but the idea that there is a degree of other worldliness with Benidorm. Lots of the shots are done in slow-motion with an esoteric soundtrack, to imply importance or mysticism. These are done when we watching a hen party, the nightlife or when Alex is seeking out Peter or visa versa. It is basically trying to be like the film Babel or Disconnect, but unlike those two films, ISIB has nothing to say.

This is a great shame because Timothy Spall is an amazing actor and in here he is wasted. The film either needed to be one thing or another. It either had to be about Peter trying all avenues to find his missing brother (think Get Carter) or it had to be about a shy reclusive man finally coming out his shell (think Being There). With the juxtaposition of the two story lines, it does not satisfy either one.

Finally the character of Peter did not feel real. As a deputy bank manager, Peter comes across as too naïve to feel credible. There was also a bit about a Spanish poet that obviously means something to Coixet but left me indifferent.

Also I very much doubt any Spanish taxi driver would be remotely interested in talking about Brexit, a subject even the Brits are fed up talking about.

Wistful, charming and a little bit surreal.

[bazzer-57663 · 8/10 · 20 November 2023]

I can see why some reviewers had trouble with this movie. It ain't one for 007 fans despite the ostensible (and frankly largely irrelevant) mystery at the centre of it.

But if you like a quirky, thoughtful slow burner then give it a whirl. Granted there's nothing original about the ageing, uptight Brit finding a new dimension to life in a hedonistic holiday resort but Timothy Spall does it so well. And the relationship between Peter and the exotic dancer is richly peculiar: Shirley Valentine this is not!

The crass decadence of Benidorm is on display but the place is also given an air of the surreal with strange dancing and singing ensembles on the beach and the delightful Moorish-inspired terracotta architecture of Alex' apartment complex.

Which turns out to be ugly with peeling paint when seen from the car park. There are quite a few jarring juxtapositions like this.

You've got a club full of Brit pensioners watching (entirely as you would expect) an Elvis impersonator do his stuff but the same audience then applauds enthusiastically but implausibly when an exotic dancer produces a string of pearls from somewhere unexpected, and is followed on stage by another exotic dancer whose act involves her buttocks and a snake.

You've got a be-vested young hunk of a doorman getting it on with a poetry-quoting cop old enough to be his Mum (a cop who initially declines to interview Peter because her junior officer's English is better than hers but who goes on to speak better English than most readers of this review).

Disconcerting. Puzzling. Intriguing.

As for the mystery, it's not important really, not compared to the strange and unlikely relationship developing between Peter and Alex, the kind of relationship Peter never expected to have and which sees him growing from a shrunken, lonely bank clerk into a wannabe lover (and which sees the beautiful, pearl-obsessed dancer slowly reveal her own loneliness and vulnerability).

But the mystery. If you've seen the movie and you still think it's a mystery then you didn't sit through the credits to get to the reveal did you? Tut tut.

Toston

[boadadf · 2/10 · 25 April 2021]

This is what , in Spain, we call 'toston'. Although the start is promising, at the first third of the movie you start wondering if it is worth watch. Then around the second third, when they kidnap Tim, you know you have made a mistake. At the end of the movie you want to fill a complain form to get back the time you have lost.

He's not here

[nogodnomasters · 1/10 · 24 December 2020]

Peter (Timothy Spall ) is forced into early retirement and decides to visit his brother in Benidorm after not seeing him for about a dozen years. He goes there and he can't find him. Discovers his brother owned a club and a butcher business.

The film is grossly boring. It pretends to be art by comparing people to weather. The story needs more than symbolism to carry it. It needs a story that doesn't cause me to doze off.

About as bad as it gets

[gsethi-1 · 3/10 · 15 November 2023]

This is truly an awful movie. Terrible acting, direction and badly paced. Why on earth do you have to make it this long with sooo little content.

Spall cannot hold a role like this himself, he needs help from people with a pulse and then he can potter around like a man muttering to himself in his nutter Englishman way he repeats in every role.

Every other actor from the cringy boss at the start to Sarita Choudry looks like this is their first role and acting natural is an alien concept.

Also lastly, why is it that I have to write reviews of 500+ words when there are so many shorter ones here, anyone know?

Two hours you'll never get back.

[zkspppxgb · 3/10 · 20 November 2023]

What a waste of talented actors through bad direction. Even Timothy Spall cannot save this film as it sinks into suffocating banality. Painfully slow and unrewarding. What could of been an interesting plot sinks into two hours of navel gazing. Possible interesting characters are left to struggle with cheap dialogue and a storyline that stutters to a finish before it's time leaving you totally frustrated with the storytelling. Symbolism pops its head up constantly but rarely makes a point, even when it could have helped the film along. Sometimes the location can be the saving of a bad film but even this was frittered away.

The most frustrating film I've ever seen

[barnesutility · 3/10 · 5 December 2023]

The film starts well. Great actors, interesting setting, good premise.

Then it sets up mystery after mystery.

Why did Peter and his brother fall out?

Did his brother actually get any of his messages?

How come everyone seems to know each other in Benidorm?

Why is the beautiful Sarita Choudhury character even remotely interested in the bedraggled, directionless, charmless Timothy Spall character?

How come the late-middle-aged police officer is having some kind of fling with the very dishy and much younger doorman?

Why is Peter getting ill? Is the cleaner poisoning him, and why?

I could mention another ten questions that the film poses, but I'd get too far into spoiler territory.

The point is, NOT ONE of the mysteries is actually solved.

NOTHING happens.

When the film ended, there was a big groan from us. How can it just STOP?

We spent the next half hour moaning to each other about how frustrating it was. And it really, really was.

Wow, was this recorded on a mobile phone with amateur actors?

[Birminghamukengland · 1/10 · 15 November 2023]

Good grief, what can I say. I always believed that Timothy Spall was a brilliant actor but I take it back, fully. Talk about wooden.

I just could not see why this film was made. Pointless.

I adore Spain and the old town of Benidorm but this film even made one of the happiest places on earth seem dull.

The film is duller than dishwater.

Terrible story telling, awful direction and camera work, and the acting from everyone is appalling.

How I lasted the full two hours I don't know and I thought it was a new release on Netflix but it's actually 4 years old.

Do not waste your time on this.

It's totally and utterly pathetic.

Total nonsense

[vp-31867 · 2/10 · 15 November 2023]

It's set in Benidorm so I should have known better.

This is fractionally better than Eyes Wide Shut... but not by much.

Shame because Timothy Spall usually can be guaranteed to assume a good watch.

I need to write 600 words but this film isn't worthy of that.

The plot is lacking, there is no conclusion and I've no idea what the point of half the characters were.

The main character isn't unlikeable but if you were shut in a room with him for more than anhour you'd either die of boredom or frustration.

Life is too short to waste time on this film. Honestly... Going to the dentist would be more fulfilling...

Snoresville

[cupfinal · 1/10 · 18 November 2023]

I rarely turn off a film half way through but this pretentious little movie had me scurrying for the remote and deciding to empty the dishwasher for something better to do. From the minute Horace Wimp arrives at ...er .... Benidorm airport ( neatly giving Alicante the swerve) the film takes a humongous nose dive into film school self indulgence. As others have said Tim Spall is usually worth the admission price but here he grossly over eggs the pudding as the almost childlike sacked bank employee. By the time the burlesque performer pulls what looked like a piece of string out her front bum I was contemplating finishing today's sudoku. FC.

Trying... in every sense

[Chabrolfan · 2/10 · 11 December 2023]

I feel a bit mean posting a poor review of this film. It is clear that the director is trying hard to create a visual language that is charming and menacing at the same time. The story, predicated on a man whose joyless life is upended when he tries to visit his brother in Spain only to find him missing and tied up in shady goings-on. Scenes are bathed in light and garish colour strongly reminiscent of Almodovar and which reflect the main character's escape from the drudgery of his routine life.

At times, the camera lingers on the bacchanalia of Benidorm's nightlife and presents an alienating, decadent and surreal world. All of this seems to be intended to to make us uncomfortable. Regrettably, the scenes are so stylised that they feel pretentious rather than disturbing. The film is trying way too hard to create a disconcerting atmosphere with it's blend of innocence and depravity and its focus on the bizarre details of Benidorm life.

The dialogue is stagey. Attempts at elliptical and thought-provoking conversation are grating and make the film feel longer than it's (already too-long) 2 hours. The police officer spouting Sylvia Plath, for example, is utter nonsense.

Going back to my original comment, the reason I'm uncomfortable leaving this film a poor is that I think the director has real creativity and visual flare. I just think she needs to rein it in and concentrate more on the plot, dialogue and editing, which is what makes this such a mess. It's also a real shame to see Spall, one of this country's finest, involved in this half-baked project.

completely pointless 2 hours

[bobbentley-03333 · 1/10 · 18 November 2023]

Could have been a good plot but no finish & the film is just a vehicle to show Timothy's acting talents- no ending, pretentious for north london dinner parties to decide what the ending means- yes it's that bad!! The only plus is the showing of Benidorm in a real way so if you're interested on the benidorm tour you may be interested in this but otherwise it is not worth the effort on turning on the tv. The women just about save the show from being a complete disaster with the characters they play but are times that desperate they have to figure in this disaster? It's not relaxing or exciting or intriguing it's a waste of 2 hours.

Road to nowhere

[SJN070 · 2/10 · 26 November 2023]

More of an art film than a commercial one. The story was weak, lacking pace and dynamics, with irrelevant scenes that bulked out the film which ended up going nowhere.

Timothy Spall carries the film and the only reason I managed to get through it. I didn't get the depth of Alex's character that I expected to, nor the dynamic with Lucy. They came across more as bolt on characters as opposed to making the main story line flow.

The plot was there, but the story just wasn't. It just seems unfinished, unpolished and somewhat bizarre.

The only takeaway for me was that the writer doesn't like Benidorm nor its British Invasion (understandably); the irrelevant reality/documentary-style scenes gave that away, no doubt completely undermining the tourist board's hard work.

Very poor writing and directing, I'm afraid.

That's 2 hours I'll never get back!

[jenead · 2/10 · 19 November 2023]

The plot looked good and stars the wonderful Timothy Spall.

It started well with a kind, hard working, but pretty boring type of guy, who tries to do his best by everyone.

After he unwillingly takes retirement, he decides to visit his brother in Spain, only to find when he gets there, that he's gone missing.

It doesn't show Benidorn in the best light. Neither does it really progress with any particular action on the search front.

Yes, it's a voyage of discovery, both about himself and who he thought his brother was, but there it ends, and what are we supposed to think about the ending?

Disappointing.

So who are "GLAMADELAIDE" and "FILMDIAGNOSTIC"?!

[harmonicalproductions · 1/10 · 7 December 2023]

The ad for "It Snows in Benidorm" carries so-called five star reviews by "GLAMADELAIDE" and "FILMDIAGNOSTIC". So, I thought, these people think it's great, so who are "GLAMADELAIDE" and "FILMDIAGNOSTIC"?!

I Googled "glamadelaide" and it said "did you mean glam adelaide?" This is a magazine about South Australia. Then I Googled "filmdiagnostic" and it said "showing results for full diagnostic" and it took me to Halfords' website, who are offering a full diagnostic car check!

So, did Halfords themselves actually review this awful tedious waste of two hours? All I can say is, that "It Snows in Benidorm" is in urgent need of a full service and probably also a new engine.