"Angela's Ashes"

Starring: Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle

146 Minutes
Rated R
Paramount Pictures
Based on the book by Frank McCourt

Warnings: language, sexual scenes and content, the portrayal of the deaths of infants and children.

[JULY 20, 2000]  I had four movies in my hands. I put back the two movies that looked like they were definitely second-run B movies, leaving me with a comedy starring Bruce Willis, and what appeared to be a solemn tragedy, "Angela’s Ashes." Any movie which has a title that names people in their post-cremation state is probably not going to be uplifting. But the recommendations and the photographs on the box convinced me that this was the movie for us tonight. Maybe I should have chosen Bruce instead.

"Angela’s Ashes" is a Depression-era story of an Irish family that escapes the poverty of Europe by immigrating to America, but they land in the midst of the American Depression, finding themselves no better off. After the death of Angela’s fifth child, a baby girl, they decide to take the journey back to Ireland (the Irish grass on the other side of the ocean is greener?). They land in Catholic Ireland only to find that conditions are worse there in her hometown of Limerick, where it seems to be raining every moment of every day.

 

 

Not only is it raining, but there seems to be an entire lack of sympathy or warmth in their homeland. Conservative religious discipline is the universal doctrine, tongue lashings the bitter tone, and desperation the reigning condition. Her husband, Malachy McCourt (Robert Carlyle), from Northern Belfast, is excluded from every job opening because of his northern accent (and Protestant affiliation). Shortly after landing they lose two more children to consumption, fever or plague, and then their lives become even more desperate. McCourt is unable to keep a job: every time he finally lands a job, he drinks all his earnings, misses work because of his drunken, hung-over, next-day state; and then as a result loses that job.

 

 

This is a coming-of-age movie: the hero of this story is young Franky McCourt, their oldest son. Frank is played by three actors (Joe Breen, Ciaren Owens and Michael Legge), screen-aging from 5 to 15. Franky breaks out of poverty, confronts the cycle of desperation and even dares to dream of a better life. He sets goals to escape the hopelessness of Limerick and the wet Irish apathy.

 

 

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"Angela’s Ashes" is obviously a movie seeking to portray the best parts of a great book. The filming of this epic is excellent. Although this movie is filmed in color, the overall effect and feeling is a monochrome environment filmed in solemn brown tones. Faces and expressions are important in this film, and director Alan Parker does an incredible job of capturing the anguish of desperation, the expression of fierce anger, the sensation of common joy and the duplicity of religious indifference among a people who are not struggling together but rather struggling apart.

The acting in this film is the finest that can be described. Robert Carlyle’s portrayal of flawed Malachy McCourt is simply perfect; Emily Watson is amazing in her depiction of Angela, who is ultimately moved to do anything to escape the torment, the misery and the depths of poverty. And Michael Legge was marvelous as he portrayed the elder Franky, who dreamed of a better future for himself and found the means to escape, crediting God for his good fortune.

 

 

The plot of this screenplay was mesmerizing, and although everything in this movie had the pall of sadness and desperation about it, I found myself watching every moment (after I regained my composure and became numb to the negativity of this story). BUT….. the fatal flaw of this movie is that it does not portray the entire book, in which Angela ultimately dies and Franky returns to Ireland from America to bring her ashes back with him to his newfound homeland of freedom and plenty. If Angela never becomes ashes in this movie, why keep the book’s title???

While this movie is flawed in its selection of the title, and is quite depressing in the story it seeks to tell, I am glad that I was able to see and emotionally share in their tragic lives. This movie is filled with life (desperate as it is) in the same fashion that "Life is Beautiful" is filled with life, and for this and the other positive reasons stated above, well worth watching.

I award this movie 3½ stars and definitely recommend it.

 

[midge]

 

E-mail your comments to me at midge@lincolndailynews.com

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