Angel

I have read a lot of negative reviews of this film and came to it not expecting a lot. I am now clueless as to why it didn't receive greater acclaim and a wider release. I loved it. It is a fabulously inventive film with superb performances. The film works on so many levels. What's not to like? I love costume dramas, particularly when a director takes the genre and subverts it. Admittedly, the beginning is a little disconcerting and only just manages to stay this side of parody but once the narrative is in its stride you "get" what Francois Ozon is doing - and you don't need to be a student of film to enjoy it either.

The film is also not simply an exercise in style. It is a great story that resonates with today's celebrity culture. Central to the film is a superlative performance from Romola Garai (surely the most naturally gifted young British currently working in film? Why was this performance overlooked in our awards season?) It is impossible to like Angel Deverell but we do understand her. To her credit, Garai does not attempt to make her likeable. In addition, Michael Fassbender and Lucy Russell are terrific; Sam Neill and Charlotte Rampling their usual classy selves.

Just one note of caution. Maybe this is a woman's or young woman's picture? Judge for yourself and see it.

G.K. Chesterton once said that, "A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."

He could have been talking about Angel Deverill, the sentimental young novelist in the middle of "Angel." This colorful, lush little movie is based on a novel by Elizabeth Taylor (no, not THAT Elizabeth Taylor), and Romola Garai brilliantly brings to life a protagonist who is swamped by her own imagination... until reality intrudes.

As a teenage girl in a dumpy little town, Angel Deverill (Garai) dreamed of becoming a famous, wealthy authoress. In time her sentimental, dramatic novels become huge bestsellers, and soon Angel is living the life she's always dreamed of -- a vast mansion, a luxurious life, and a neverending spring of melodramatic ideas.

Soon her real life becomes almost as dramatic as her fantasy life, especially when she falls in love with an impoverished painter named Esme (Michael Fassbender). But when Angel is confronted by death, marriage, war and the loss of her loved ones, she discovers that a dramatic life can also be the worst kind....

Rich ballrooms, sumptuous mansions, dramatic confessions of love, and endless swathes of gold, velvet and marble -- "Angel" is a luscious playground for the senses. For the first half, it seems like Angel is living out one of her own novels, but gradually a darker tone starts to creep into the story (such as when Esme tries to rape Angel).

And François Ozon has fun with the more ironic moments, mainly by pushing them over the top -- Angel and Esme's first kiss is set in a rainstorm, against a sunset AND with a rainbow overhead, and Angel greets Nora while posing in front of a harp in a flowing bright-pink gown. It's both amusing and heartbreaking to see Angel building up an iridescent bubble of make-believe to live in, only to have it popped by the real world.

Angel is not a heroine, really -- it doesn't take long for us to find out she's immature, selfish and insensitive, and a compulsive liar who constantly embroiders her mundane past. So it's a credit to Garai's talent that she actually makes us like Angel most of the time, putting her limpid eyes and trembly mouth to perfect use. And as her life falls apart, it's painful to see this child-woman being hammered by reality until she shatters.

Fassbender is as excellent but much darker, as we see the moody Esme moving from an edgy young painter into a self-destructive shell of his former self. And Lucy Russell has a good role as the devoted fan who gets to work for her favorite author, only to be subsumed into her life.

"Angel" is a tragic, dramatic, irony-soaked little story with a clueless anti-heroine -- but for Romola Garai's finest role, definitely a must-see.

I hate it. I love it. I can't make up my mind about "Angel" - the movie of the passionate, naive, obnoxious, ambitious egoiste Angel, who lives with her mother above a grocery and writes romantic novels. She has always dreamed of living at Paradise house and after she is published to buys the house - and everything that goes with an eccentric life style.

Towards the end of the movie, Angel's loyal companion speaks of writing a biography about Angel and muses as to write about Angel in reality or in her fantasy world. A whirlwind world of big emotions, passion, lushious everything.

In truth, Angel is a character that the viewer loves and hates. I admire her persistense even when she is ruthless. The story in itself is banal as has a certain Barbara Cartland flair, but that is the life Angel plunges into willingly. The movie itself uses superficial effects as a movie playing behind the characters to allude Greece and Egypt, but I find the entire picture complete. Today, we would call Angel a Barbie girl, but in the Victorian era she is Angel with over-the-top hand gestures and a naivety that makes me smile.

Louise