First Snow

Guy Pearce plays a high-pressure salesman whose chance visit to a fortune-teller (J.K. Simmons) with an ominous reading sends him obsessing over his a future where his "days are numbered." It's like he's going through the stages of dying, but it's not illness but fate he's fighting. "While it's stylishly done, and it may manage to keep you intrigued for its first half hour, eventually it can't help running in circles," wrote critic John Hartl on MSNBC. "'First Snow' works best as a tale of guilt and obsession, populated by actors who somehow find conviction in the sketchiest of circumstances. The plot may vanish from memory, but not the untidy ambivalence Pearce and Simmons bring to their roles." Piper Perabo and William Fichtner co-star and Mark Fergus (an Oscar nominee for his screenplay to "Children of Men") directs.