Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Olivia Temple After a slow start this film was like throwing a pebble into still waters and watching the ripples widen. Written, produced and directed by Rebecca Miller with insight, sensitivity and humour there are strong overtones of the magical and the sinister, the angelic and the devilish and performances from the two child actors which are entrancing. The sisters, aged nine and six, create a world of fantasy which is partly induced by longing for a happy family life and partly by a desperate desire by the older girl to find salvation through spirituality. Their mother, a pale and ravaged shadow of her former self, with distinct similarities to Marilyn Monroe (who was married to Arthur Miller, Rebecca Miller's father) barely notices the girls as they drift in and out of her line of vision and her drunken haze. Their father is totally focused on her unpredictable behaviour and his job in a car scrap yard. There is a strong sexual frisson between the two. When the film starts we see the family move in an old pick- up truck to a rambling and abandoned house with metal beds and dirty curtains. Through a grill in the floor the girls watch their parents making love below, a scene of mystifying and disturbing violence. "It looks as if it hurts", the older sister says to her little sister when she tries to prepare her for when she has to kiss boys and "do it" in order to have a baby. The little sister is, as is the case with siblings, in awe of her big sister and hangs on her every word, believing the increasingly bizarre and black rituals that she is told she must perform in order to "Go into the Big Nothing". There are terrifying moments, funny moments and wonderful cameos - like the next door neighbour who sleep walks every night and looks for a letter in her mail box, always dressed in her nightie and with curlers in her hair. There is a wonderful scene of a baptism in the nearby lake and a night time visit to a fairground where a young man with dangerous intentions almost gets his way. I found it riveting, worrying, delightful, believable and a completely brilliant portrayal of the power of the imagination that children have, which is sadly so little encouraged.

Andy (film-critic) "Angela", I should begin, was not your average film. It was a strong opening from Rebecca Miller, the spawn of playwright Arthur Miller and film vixen Marilyn Monroe, but where it suffered was that it felt too amateurish. Without biting my tongue "Angela" began impressively, strong opening with a family's move to a new home. The defined mother/father characters (albeit eerily similar references to Marilyn Monroe), two strong girl leads that seem to have genuine chemistry together, and an undefined era which allowed my imagination to flourish and ponder ignited "Angela" immediately. It was when the film moved into its second and third act, where it became alarmingly obvious that Miller was loosing her grasp on not just the film crew, but also the convoluted story itself. Visions of Lucifer, the Virgin Mary, a diluted neighbor, and the big elephant in the room – religion – seem to take priority over such important elements like character development, questionable motive, and family dynamics. Miller places so much focus on these symbolic references that this quality film begins to slip through her fingers. By the second act, where the two daughters embark on their own journey through this unknown town, which again is bombarded with referenced evils and unknown symbolism, that reality gets surpassed by a director who would rather shock than impress. The entire scene with the possible pedophile could have been an intense and memorable scene, but instead it falls short, because Miller is so focused on getting us to Lucifer that we only recognize this scene as a small blip on the radar. Again, I don't want to sound pessimistic about this film, Miller began with such a strong eye that I thought this was going to be an instant classic, but by the dull ending, "Angela" is so muddled that empathy towards the characters becomes greater than excitement for the film.While our characters constantly have to play second fiddle to the symbolic religious references throughout the film, I must admit that they were eerie and interesting throughout bits and segments. Miller had a strong cast, a father who gave up everything for his family, a mother lost in her head (especially well played), and two daughters searching for meaning was an amazing dynamic – poorly defined – but amazing all the same. What I had hoped Miller would do was make these four characters the central focus of the story, but alas, it doesn't happen. The struggle between father/mother again are second to the religious symbolism, thus we lack the apparent emotion towards them. When all of these characters get to their final moments, we just don't care any further. We have given up. A scene was needed where the family reunites over a crisis that nearly tore them apart – cliché? – I believe it would have strengthened the characters and transformed this film from a simply symbolic picture into a family drama. While "Angela" was the obvious lead character, all of these in the immediate family were worthy (and powerful) enough to watch equally. They all carried their weight well, one just wishes we could have spent more time with them.Finally, an issue needs to be addressed with this film that was neither mentioned in the audio commentary nor in many posts about this film, but when a director cannot clean up or recognize that a boom mic has made it into at least five scenes (extremely apparent) than something is wrong. One cannot say that this film is superb with technical failures happening all over the place. This is your blood and soul when you create a film; why not present it like it was a wrapped Christmas gift, not like it was just found in the sandbox? That small issue really lowered the standard for this film, making it just another amateurish independent film created by someone who carries a famous last name.Overall, I wanted to like "Angela", I wanted to sit here and say that I was impressed with Miller's first outing, but alas, I wasn't. It was such a powerful opening, but it floundered so quickly. Miller's focus on the religious element, while defining for Angela, deeply ruined the rest of the characters. The family became a shadow, with no real emotion surrounding them, but instead reacting to the beliefs of Angela. I was drawn into Angela's mother's story, but received no gratification or explanation. I loved her father's desire to be a good dad, but again, sitting in a circle or becoming baptized was more important. I was misled by the goals, and consequently missed the "why" and "how" for the final act. Coupled with the laughable errors by the crew (this should have been an introduction to the first day of using a boom mic), "Angela" just fell through the cracks. It perhaps was the obvious borrow from "Gummo" or just the drowning of symbolism, but "Angela" will remain – for me – another independent film trying to make its mark. I am eager to see "Personal Velocity" if only to observe if Miller successfully saw the errors and made the corrections. "Angela" was a first draft film, with much needed corrections and red markings in the margins.Grade: ** out of *****

Movie-viewer The movie Angela, although entertaining in its beginning as a lyrical commentary on the precariousness of childhood, eventually puzzles and disappoints as it declines into David Lynch-like lines and imagery that really don't add anything (except perhaps atmosphere) to the film. In the first half of the film, Rebecca Miller provides us with glimpses and feelings of childhood that trigger vague remembrances of half-forgotten feelings of our own childhood -- the seemingly contradictory juxtaposition of the helplessness of being a non-adult forced to deal with adult problems (e.g., irresponsible or sick parent), with the powerful strength that comes from an ability to believe in worlds that cannot be seen. Unfortunately, the second half of the movie degenerates into cryptic dialogue and confusing imagery and scenarios that are reminiscent of Lynch at less than his best. Mixed in with an increasingly prominent religious-hysteria-in-young-girl story line, the movie just left me feeling annoyed that I'd invested my time in such an unsatisfying film. The main character also began to alienate me, and ultimately cause real antipathy in me, during this second half, where she continues to drag her sister along in her quest for salvation, appropriating other people's property (e.g., horse, family's picture) without compunction because they are "signs" of some holy grail that only she can detect.And although this may seem contradictory to my earlier comment about the cryptic dialogue and imagery, I found the second half to be much too intellectualized. It seems that the filmmaker was trying to tie in the fall of Satan/Lucifer with the fall that every human must experience in his/her maturation process -- through the realization of one's sexuality (signified by Angela's clothing and a particular event), and through the realization of one's own mortality (signified by Angela's search for the way to heaven). But I found these efforts to be generally unmoving (perhaps because they were so confused) and thus, as previously stated, ultimately taking away from the enjoyment of the movie. (Also, I thought a 10-year-old was a bit too young to illustrate these themes, and the film would have been better off staying away from them altogether.) Consequently, the latter half of the movie became a rambling essay on the painful awakenings each child must experience on the road to adulthood, rather than the poem or short story it could have been on the terrible beauty of childhood in an imperfect world.

ninkursag ANGELA whisks the viewer away into the nightmare of a young girl threatened with the loss of her very world through the crumbling psychology of her mother. Rebecca Miller's film brings thoroughly to bloom the essence of a dangerous imagination which plays out like a Greek tragedy in the lives of Angela and her little sister on a quest to save themselves from the devil. The devil himself white as chalk and winged appears to warn them that he soon will claim the family. A helpless father cannot bind together the broken bridges and fallen stars of his wife, a Marilyn Monroe-like singer who can only perpetuate the failures of her life, spreading them like termites to envelope any stability her family could muster. It seems then to ANGELA that she in her innocence must bear that burden and find by way of a stray horse a black cat who she believes give her messages to where she can find the holy grail of her family's salvation, and this to a desperate end.