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 I can’t honestly tell you not to go see this film, it’s one of those films that you really, really, really want to be outstanding. Adapted as well as directed by David Gordon Green from Stuart O’Nan’s novel of the same name, Snow Angels has a top drawer cast in a dark, compellingly tale of human failibility. Yet somehow it just misses the mark, unable to finally come together in a way that would leave us moved to explore our own relationship to the story. There are really two somewhat intersecting stories here. The first involves Annie (Kate Beckinsale) and her ex high school sweetheart husband Glenn (Sam Rockwell as yet another unstable oddball). In the real world this kind of guy isn’t really charmingly kooky but more likely a dangerous, obsessive so it’s the characterization is bit disarming. I guess we are meant to see his humanity, I can get behind that, even Magneto had a touching back story, but it was still a mostly confusing performance. These two have a young child and deep conflicts that seem mainly to be about what happens when you are a working class person in a place that’s clearly been left behind, with your only options being working in a Chinese restaurant or selling car-pets. Even though Annie is really simmering with regret, disappointment and burden, exploding at everyone around her, there is no doubt that Glenn is the one who will go over the edge. The question might be when and how, except the story starts at the end so you have an inkling, more than an inkling how it will all turn out.
The somewhat related story revolves around an odd duck, trombone playing teenager named Arthur (Michael Angarano). His parents (Griffin Dunne and Jeanetta Arnette) are separating at the opening and we see bits and pieces of their conflict, as Arthur ex-plores his seemingly first real romance with Lila (Olivia Thirlby trying her best to hide her beauty under some weird glasses.) It seems that we’re meant to draw some conclu-sions about class and opportunity or lack thereof in these kind of post-industrial small towns/cities that were once bustling manufacturing centers and are now a counterpart to urban wastelands with acres of abandoned factories and mills. I know this because I used to live in such a place and saw up close the kinds of violence and despair among the residents who found themselves stuck there.
From that perspective, the fact that this film can take you there, makes it more than worth watching. It’s just that the story doesn’t pull together. There are probably a few too many supporting characters although it’s always a pleasure to see Amy Sedaris, here playing Annie’s best and cuckolded friend Barb. But there isn’t enough time to flesh them all out, there isn’t even time to put the two stories, the two families together in a way that highlights the class divide referenced above. There isn’t anything excep-tional about the camera work, or the look in general, it’s all simple and straightforward, just like these small town people think they should be. From the beginning, everything unravels, like the high school marching band does during the opening scene until it all finally implodes. Except if you’re lucky. Like Arthur, who pretty much comes through it all unscathed. That does say something significant about contemporary America, something that needs to be said. And thanks to David Gordon Green for taking that on. When I was an academic, it was important that everything was “rigorous”, I guess it means it has to look like you spent more than 5 minutes thinking about it. Well this is rigorous and you will feel worn out, maybe wrung out by the closing credits but ulti-mately that’s not always enough.
SNOW ANGELS
opens in Los Angeles, March 14, 2008.
Written and directed by David Gordon Green from the novel by Stuart O’Nan. Produced by Dan Lindau, Paul Miller, Lisa Muskat, and Cami Taylor. Released by Warner Inde-pendent Pictures. Running time: 106 minutes.
Cast: Kate Beckinsale (Annie Marchand); Sam Rockwell (Glenn Marchand); Michael Angarano (Arthur Parkinson); Jeanetta Arnette (Louise Parkinson); Griffin Dunne (Don Parkinson); Nicky Katt (Nate Petite); Amy Sedaris (Barb Petite); Olivia Thirlby (Lila Ray-bern).
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