To me, this movie is perfection.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

New Zealand screenwriter, producer and director Jane Campion's second feature film which was written by Australian screenwriter Laura Jones, is an adaptation of New Zealand author, essayist and poet Janet Frame's three autobiographical novels "To the Is-land" (1982), "An Angel at My Table" (1984) and "The Envoy from Mirror City" (1984). It was shot on location in New Zealand, England, France and Spain and produced by New Zealand-Australian producers Bridget Ikin and John Maynard. This New Zealand-Australia-UK co-production was originally produced as a television miniseries in three parts, but due to its audience's good reception it was released as a theatrical feature film. It tells the story about Janet, also called Jean, Nini, Topsy and Fuzzy, Paterson Frame, a shy and inspirited girl who grows up during the early 1920s in a working-class family in Dunedin, a city in the South Island of New Zealand, consisting of her father Curly, her mother Lottie, her older sister Myrtle, her older epileptic brother George and her younger sisters Isabel and June. Janet has a close relationship with her sisters, finds a good friend in her neighbor Marjorie and already at an early age she expresses a passion for writing. She is encouraged by her parents and her siblings, and at school her talent is noticed by her teachers. Janet's way of communicating and expressing herself through words becomes everything to her and as she grows into a teenager she begins to seclude herself and dedicates herself completely to her writing.Acutely and engagingly directed by New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion, this finely paced biographical period drama which is narrated by the protagonist, draws an intimate and humane portrayal of a highly gifted and suppressed woman, marred by the deaths of her adolescent sisters and misdiagnosed with Schizophrenia, and her struggle to become a poet during the mid-20th century. While notable for its naturalistic and colorful milieu depictions, the fine production design by New Zealand production designer and art director Grant Major, cinematography by English-born New Zealand cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh and costume design by costume designer Glenys Jackson, this humorous and tragic character-driven epic traces four decades in the life of Janet Frame (1924-2004) and depicts a pervasive and variegated study of character which examines themes such as childhood, family relations, friendship and coming-of-age.This detailed, lyrical and somewhat surreal independent film which premiered at the 47th Venice Film Festival in 1990, becoming the first film from New Zealand to be screened there, contains a great score by New Zealand composer Don McGlashan which emphasizes its poignant atmosphere, and is impelled and reinforced by its stringent narrative structure, the exceptional acting performances by New Zealand actress Kerry Fox in her debut feature film role, Alexia Keogh in her debut feature film role, Karen Fergusson in her debut feature film role and the fine supporting acting performances. A memorable homage from a profound filmmaker which gained, among several other awards, the International Critics' Award at the 13th Toronto International Film Festival in 1990, the OCIC Award and the Grand Special Jury Prize at the 47th Venice Film Festival in 1990 and the award for Best Actress Kerry Fox at the 35th Valladolid International Film Festival in 1990.

Superficially, this is a sort of "My Brilliant Career," meets "A Beautiful Mind."It features one of the most extraordinary actresses, new to me. I saw her in "Intmacy" and had to find more. It is made by a talented and sometimes engaging filmmaker who explores how women are haunted. It is about a writer whose books don't grab me, but whose story does. She believed herself haunted.The problem is that these three songs from different souls don't overlap that much.Frame created written images that were teased out of a struggle with life, one that infused her. Her sanity came from the writing. She didn't write about insanity and marginalization, she wrote from them to counter and co-opt them somewhat. This engages the reader because most of us are afraid to go as deeply into the darkness as these visions indicate.That's a different thing entirely than the story Campion has chosen to give us, which is about all the external agency that surrounded her. I cannot think of an instance where the literary kite and the cinematic string are in such different dimensions. Sure, its an interesting story that someone's light survived, I suppose. But we never see that light, or the ledges that were climbed, or the images that were carried out for us.What's left for Fox to do is emote visually. She does an extraordinary job, quite apart from the fact that it is ineffective in this container. I really do think she's something — another of those Australian/New Zealand crowd that just seem to have something that is rare elsewhere.She and the girls who play her younger selves are redheads. That's not at all a cinematic device, though it is used cleverly to mend the three actresses. Frame actually had that Clarabelle hair.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

i cannot believe everything fell together so perfectly that this movie became possible - absolutely stunning masterpiece! Finding such a child actress and the adolescent actress and the adult one, the light, the colors, the landscapes and dresses, and hair, and skin and bookcovers, all the beds and blankets, chockolat and psychiatric clinic, London and Paris and Spain and cookies and her purse, all i wanted to do is to fix her teeth and love and take care of her forever. After 10 years of search, when i didn't even know the name of movie that i saw on TV one late night, because nobody heard of such a movie ever, i finally got my hands on the DVD today and I am so very happy!

"An Angel at My Table" (New Zealand, 1990): It's been three years since I've last watched this film. There is NO further reason to wonder if it should be in my "top" category. It is created by Jane Campion from the writer Janet Frame's autobiographies of her harrowing life. We join Janet during childhood, move through the teenage years and into adulthood, as she struggles for a place - ANY place - in the world...but deep down, writing is her one reliable love. Three actresses were needed for the role of Janet, and all do wonderful jobs, especially depicting someone who always feels on the outside, and longs to be included. Jane Campion, one of my favorite film makers, presents a powerful, subdued, and melancholy work of Art. It is not an amazing film due to every camera shot or the quality of sound recording… THIS work is great for its acting, and its story telling. It has as much emotion as one heart can hold for 157 minutes.