Did you people see the same film I saw?

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

"Angela" is a movie that has a not entirely unsuccessful stab at depicted the world through the eyes of a child. However, it never succeeds at keeping our attention for very long. It's like listening to a rambling storyteller who occasionally stumbles upon something interesting, but most of the time, you can safely tune him or her out without missing anything. I admit to being perplexed and distracted by the movie's boom mic being so often visible. I couldn't understand how a movie so beautifully shot and with actors like Frances Conroy, Vincent Gallo and John Ventimiglia could make such a basic mistake. Apparently, (as IMDB tells us), this fault was not with the filmmakers, but the distributors. The movie was supposed to be shown in letterbox format, which would have obscured the equipment. When transferred to DVD, the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen were removed.I'm glad to hear this wasn't the director's mistake, but still, it is very, very noticeable. The plot is about a young girl whose parents are struggling to deal with the wife's mental illness. Left largely to fend for themselves, the girls attempt to "enter Heaven", interpreting strangers as either good or bad angels there to help them on their journey.The movie reminded me a bit of that Swedish masterpiece, "Children's Island", but it's not nearly as good as that one, despite strong performances and beautiful photography. It doesn't bring you into the child's world as completely as that movie does, and it doesn't captivate you half as much.

A leisurely and ultimately tragic tale of two girls, ten-year-old Angela and her six-year-old sister Ellie, led astray by a dysfunctional life style and fantasies of religious salvation.Travail seems heaped upon travail. Father is distant and brusque. Mother is a bipolar who is hospitalized. The family is recently moved into a small town in upstate New York, and a pretty bleak one at that. Angela and Ellie are baptized in the local stream and run away from home. There is a weird, oneiristic episode in a carnival. A young man seems to befriend them but it's unclear whether his interest is paternal or more raw than that. (Angela is young and scrawny but rather appealing, with her long blond mane and sad face.) By this time Angela has begun to acquire religious delusions and believes the young man to be an friend from heaven -- or maybe a fiend from hell, I couldn't quite figure it out, since my own delusions don't run on a parallel track.The man gently kisses Angela's cheek. In the grip of her conviction, she tells him emphatically, "I know you. I know who you are." The man backs off, nonplussed, agitated, asks, "Who told you?", then runs to his car and drives quickly away. I don't know who he was, what his intentions were, or what he was afraid of, and you won't either.The whole movie is rather like that scene. The two girls wander through it and things happen to them. The significance of the events is only what we attribute to them. A placid white stallion wanders into the picture and Angela indicates the horse's member and explains to Ellie that that's what men have. Girls have to be married before they're twenty-one and do it with men, otherwise the girls begin to shrink. That's why you see so many little old ladies. (I'm not making this up.) Three features of the movie are memorable. One is the acting of the two kids. It's perfectly okay (except for an arguable second or two, here and there). How do they find children so young who can handle parts this well? Second is the location shooting and the everyone-else-is-dead atmosphere. The little town and the surrounding woods and fields aren't themselves ugly, but they're not pretty either. They're more indifferent than anything else. There's no enchantment in them, though there is the hint of a haunt. (A young boy runs into them in a grassy field, punches Angela in the eye, and scoots away.) In no scene is there ever more people than is absolutely necessary to establish even a minimal sense of verisimilitude. The streets of the town are dismal and empty of life. The carnival is practically deserted. The location LOOKS a bit like upstate New York but the atmosphere is misty and ridden with fundamentalist religion, suggesting Appalachia, a little farther South.Third -- look out, spoiler! -- third is Angela's death scene. It's flamboyantly understated. Angela believes that if one baptism is good for you, then an infinite number of them is infinitely better. So she dunks herself and dunks herself and gradually drifts downstream until the shallow creek turns into a wide rippling swiftly moving river and disappears without a sound.The budget is low. The story is despairing. I'm not sure what the point of the film is, outside of its capturing a number of strikingly composed shots. I guess it's tough to come from a broken family and it's tough to face adolescence. And, as the Buddha suggested, let's not take our actions to extremes, not even our attempts at salvation. Maybe, as Angela says, heaven is right here when you're alive, and hell is after you're dead.

This is an amazing if bizarre film. The acting of the two little girls is superb and far surpasses those of child actors in big budget studio films. I've read some disturbing posts accusing this film of child exploitation, particularly in the use of nudity. The nudity in this film is as innocent as a baby on a bearskin rug, but too many narrow-minded morons with internet access confuse this with pornography.The use of nudity in this film is a bit artsy, but very natural and represents the only beauty in these girls lives. Swimming nude with their mother the only time in their lives they've experienced joy. But the religious views of Angela makes her see herself as sinful, and her sister as unclean. This film could have been improved by more nudity to show how this budding adolescent views her own body. She already has a negative view of sexuality. But it's an issue no American filmmaker would dare explore, and I don't blame them.This is where the film becomes a near-satire of the dangers of blind faith in fear-based religions. This view of sin and uncleanliness leads Angela down a dangerous path but in her innocence, she doesn't view her actions as having negative consequences on her sister. Without giving any spoilers, Ellie experiences true freedom at the end only by experiencing, in the director's words, "an intense emotional experience."The only negative comment I have is I already know ahead of time how society views films of this nature. I'm surprised to see that few religious nuts who have seen this film never recognized it as a criticism of their faith. No one seems to be able to get over the sight of a naked baby to be able to do that.tlyoung88

I happened to see this on late night swiss TV(!); as far as I'm aware it was never released in Europe, where it would surely strike a note. Anyway: beautiful in every respect, true poetry in the photography and styling, the two girls are spellbinding, the whole thing is magical. Complimenti to R. Miller - eagerly awaitng your next movie.