I sometimes go into movies blind. I used to do this all the time back when movies were my business, but I still like to be surprised. It's hard to go into movies blind in the information era, but I managed it with Cold Weather (2010, directed by Aaron Katz). I knew nothing about it, except that it was a mystery. The fact that it was a mystery wasn't readily apparent for the first forty minutes or so of the movie. It stumbles upon its plot in the course of charting the lives of four ordinary twenty-somethings in rainy Portland, Oregon.
This begins as a standard indie slice of life piece. We are introduced to Doug and his sister, Gail, at a dinner with their parents. Doug seems kind of rootless. He gave up his studies in forensic science to intern as a chef. He got bored of that, and now sleeps on his sister's couch while he looks for a job. He finds one at a factory that makes sacks of ice. Here, he meets Carlos, who moonlights as a DJ, and with whom Doug shares his love of the Sherlock Holmes books. Doug also has an ex-girlfriend, Rachel, who is in Portland for job training. Carlos becomes smitten with her and asks her out. After a couple of dates, Rachel vanishes. Perhaps inflamed by reading Doug's Holmes books, Carlos convinces Doug to investigate her disappearance. They find out that Rachel wasn't telling the whole truth about why she was in Portland. Her disappearance has sinister motives, which Doug and Carlos pursue, eventually drawing Gail into their band of Scoobies.