41 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
41 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
few films in 1999 have divided the critical consensus as sharply as alan parker's adaptation of frank mccourt's memoir angela's ashes .
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many dismissed it as an humorless , sentimentalized , uninteresting version of the hugely popular novel ; others hailed it as a heartfelt , sincere portrait of the human spirit .
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i'm somewhere in between , leaning strongly towards the latter .
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it's certainly well-made and it never becomes tedious like some literary adaptations have a tendency to be .
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but i have a feeling that parker filled the movie with pseudo-lyrical shots of rain falling on the homely streets of ireland just so it can have the two-and-a-half hour running time that screams " i'm important ! "
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mccourt's book of the same name was about him and his family moving from the us to ireland in the early 1900's , a time when most people were desperately trying to get into the us .
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as he comments , " we were the only irishfolk to say goodbye to the statue of liberty . "
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in ireland , frank ( played by joe breen as a small child ) , his 3 brothers , his mother angela ( emily watson ) and his father malachy ( robert carlyle ) get financial help from angela's mother , a stereotypically strict catholic who chides her daughter for marrying a northern irishman .
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she helps them get a rat-infested apartment and malachy goes looking for a job .
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positions are scarce and when he does finally find one , he is unable to hold on to it because of his fondness for drinking .
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meanwhile , frank goes to an uptight catholic school , where the instructors beat students with blunt wooden objects as often as their heart desires .
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two of frank's brothers soon die , crippled by the dreadful living conditions and malnutrition .
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as if the poverty and the suffering weren't intense enough as it stood , malachy and angela have another baby , worsening the situation further .
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i imagine this doesn't sound like much of a plot .
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that's probably because it isn't one .
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these are people .
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this is their story .
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director alan parker ( the commitments ) knows how to tell a good story and angela's ashes , despite its relentlessly literary tone remains interesting .
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though the film occasionally indulges too much in its gloomily picturesque irish setting , it avoids looking like a glorified travelogue .
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supplementing parker's able direction are the engaging , often poignant performances of the leads , some of them seasoned thespians , others relative beginners .
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carlyle , the charismatic british actor who has shown astonishing range by hopping from the lead in a rowdy slapstick comedy to the villain in a james bond movie and now to sentimental melodrama , perfectly portrays his rather pathetic character .
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we empathize with the guy , but we don't like or admire him .
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emily watson turns in a heartfelt , sincere supporting performance .
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it is mostly she who implants that lump in our throats .
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also worthy of mention is little joe breen , whose face graces the film's superb poster .
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it is breen's first feature film and he's extraordinary as young frank .
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not unlike sudden oscar darling haley joel osment of the sixth sense , you can peer into the character's soul through breen's sad eyes .
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on the flip side , one thing that could have vastly improved angela's ashes is a more decisive editor .
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while gerry hambling sure makes the most of the scenery , he and parker also leave in at least a half an hour of unnecessary footage .
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the first half , especially , could have been trimmed down , bringing the film to a more reasonable running time and doing our bladders a favor in the process .
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things pick up at about the halfway point , sort of dismissing a lot of the criticisms i accumulated during the opening hour , but i maintain that the aggressively deliberate pace parker and co . set in the first half was ludicrously unnecessary .
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* spoiler warning !
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skip next paragraph if in suspense ! *
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the film's final message is somewhat conflicted , as frankie , in effect , leaves his family famished in ireland while he himself goes back to america .
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what , exactly , are we supposed to make of that ?
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his mother doesn't seem to mind because she wants the best possible future for her son , as any mother would , but it still seems inconsiderate of him .
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i haven't read the book , but i'm sure that mccourt justifies his actions therein ; therefore , i'm suspicious .
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another thing that's never made clear in the movie is the meaning of the title , which , i'm sure , is also explained in the memoir .
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if seen as a film onto itself , rather than an adaptation , angela's ashes stands tall .
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despite a few minor setbacks , it is a captivating story of people forced to live in the trenches by an merciless society where those of weaker character are shoved to the bottom of the financial ladder .
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