ANGELA
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1996 James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 8.0 Alternative Scale: ***1/2 out of ****
United States, 1996 Running Length: 1:39 MPAA Classification: No MPAA Rating (Sex, mature themes) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Shown at the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, 5/3/96, 5/4/96
Cast: Miranda Stuart Ryne, Charlotte Blythe, Anna Thompson,
John Ventimiglia
Director: Rebecca Miller
Producers: Ron Kastner
Screenplay: Rebecca Miller
Cinematography: Ellen Kuras
ANGELA, director Rebecca Miller's award-winning debut feature (it captured two prizes at last year's Sundance Film Festival), presents a view of the modern world through the eyes of a creative ten-year old girl. With a relaxed pace and lyrical visual style, this motion picture, which explores issues of spirituality and guilt, will never find an audience among mainstream movie-goers. Nevertheless, for those who appreciate perceptive, offbeat, experimental features, ANGELA offers a rewarding one-hundred minutes.
The two main characters, Angela (Miranda Stuart Ryne) and her six- year old sister, Ellie (Charlotte Blythe), have just moved into a new upstate New York home. Their mother, Mae (Anna Thompson), a manic- depressive ex-singer, has an erratic relationship with her two daughters and her husband, Andrew (John Ventimiglia). Sometimes, she's sweet and joyful; on other occasions, she's violent and self-destructive. Angela doesn't understand her mother, but she's sure that her own sin and spiritual inadequacies are somehow responsible for Mae's problems, so, with Ellie in tow, she runs away from home, following obscure "signs from God" in a quest to purify herself, and, as a result, save her mother.
Angela readily plugs the holes in her understanding of the Catholic catechism by coming up with mystical constructions of her own. In her metaphysical vision, the world is a place of angels -- both good and bad -- and the difference between going to heaven or hell depends on whether you can differentiate between the two. Mistakes are easy to make -- Angela erroneously believes a pedophile to be an agent of God because he gives her the money to win a stuffed animal at a carnival. She sees reality through naive eyes, and Miller (who wrote the screenplay in addition to handling the directorial chores) does a superlative job of presenting this story from the child's viewpoint while still making it clear what the more objective, "adult" perspective of events is.
Miranda Stuart Ryne, a young actress of astounding ability, was chosen for the title role from a field of more than 1000 hopefuls. Viewing her nearly-flawless performance, it's easy to understand why Miller cast her. For someone of her age, she has amazing screen presence, and makes acting appear effortless. The impish Charlotte Blythe, although not as effective as her older co-star, is entirely believable.
When we're children, we attribute more power to ourselves than we actually have. That's the quality of youth that ANGELA most perfectly captures. Not since last year's obscure Polish feature, CROWS, has there been a more apt exploration of how children relate to their setting. Angela's refuge is the imaginative spirituality that she shares only with her sister. The film builds slowly, but inevitably, towards a conclusion that is at once powerful, shocking, and moving. In some ways, ANGELA can be seen as a cautionary tale about the dangers of taking a particular dogma to an extreme, but, mostly, the movie reminds us of the complexity of life from the child's point-of-view, something it's easy to forget once we cross the invisible boundary of adulthood.
- James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@bc.cybernex.net web: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin
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