As much as I
recognize David Gordon Green’s potential as a filmmaker, my
relationship with his work has been rocky to say the least. The
movies for which he has received the most acclaim—George
Washington and All the Real Girls—elicited reactions
out of me that could be characterized as mixed at best. While I
recognized the beautiful melancholy to be found in their
depictions of everyday Southern life and cared for their
characters, neither picture was able to connect with me on an
emotional level, let alone break my heart. Green’s third
feature, Undertow, involved me one of the best
cat-and-mouse plots of the last ten years, but I still felt
removed from its intended-to-be-intimate story. Walking into
Green’s most recent film, Snow Angels, I hoped that the
young writer/director would uniformly succeed but realized that
my response to the movie would likely be less-than-impressed.
Thankfully,
Green hits at least a triple with Snow Angels, if not a
complete home-run. The movie is undoubtedly his most
accomplished effort to date. The reason for this is clear: he
provides the average coast-based viewer (his films are usually
so minimally-distributed they never reach their native South
theatrically) a reason to strongly believe in the story and the
characters. Sure, I could sympathize with the protagonists of
All the Real Girls and George Washington in their
respective colloquial contexts, but I didn’t understand
them. This time around, I could feel the characters as a member
of Green’s audience; I was finally able to exist among them as
the movie’s images were projected onto the screen.
The staples of
the movie are the three relationships—each of a different
generation—that take place at its forefront. Most fragile among
them is that shared between Annie (Kate Beckinsale) and Glenn
(Sam Rockwell), two thirtysomethings whose marriage was
shattered by a suicide-attempt he made. Now, they’re fighting to
preserve the sense of normalcy in their young daughter’s life
after completely ruining their own; Annie works for
next-to-nothing at a tacky restaurant and Glenn can barely find
work selling carpet for an old pal’s factory. Still, Annie wants
mostly to forget all about Glenn; she has begun to cheat on him
with her best friend’s husband (Nicky Katt). Meanwhile, Annie’s
teenage co-worker, Arthur (Michael Angarano), is discovering
romance for the first time with a sweet, goofy girl he goes to
school with named Lila (Olivia Thirlby). Of course, Arthur’s
ability to connect with Lila suffers from some reservations he
develops at the hand of his parents’ (Jeanetta Arnette and
Griffin Dunne) impending divorce.
There’s an
impending sense of doom found in Snow Angels, probably
because gunshots sound offscreen during the opening scene, just
before Green transports the viewer back in time by a few weeks.
But maybe not. Truth is, someone may indeed be killed by the end
of the film, but such only seems natural within the context of
the story. Even the story-thread involving Arthur—the most
hopeful of the three—feels bleak. After all, what’s to say that
the relationship he’s developing with Lila won’t turn into the
same small-town tragedy that his parents’ marriage did? Only in
a special, invigorating scene that the young characters share
after spending the night together does this thought leave the
viewer’s mind for more than a fleeting moment.
Still, to say
that the movie is morose doesn’t mean that it’s a trip that one
shouldn’t take. In fact, it’s impossible not to come to truly
love these characters: to empathize for their passions,
pursuits, frustrations, loves, losses, plights. The experience
of Snow Angels, no matter how dark and brooding, is
ultimately hopeful because it reminds the viewer of the fact
that life renews itself. Despite the characters’ troubles, the
imprints they leave on their relationships last forever,
presumably for the better of those around them. Even if all of
the individuals in Snow Angels may not survive in the
end, they still provide opportunities for others to find
redemption.
There are many
reasons I felt a heightened awareness of Snow Angels’
characters as opposed to those in other Green films, not the
least of which was the film’s setting. Instead of carving a
story out of the pains and pleasures unique to the rural Deep
South, Green here chooses to adapt a Stewart O’Nan novel set in
a small Pennsylvania town that is identical to so many others in
the country. (Ironically, the film was shot in the
increasingly-popular filming-locale of Halifax, Nova Scotia.)
Instead of dwelling on the setting that develops his characters,
Green focuses on the characters that develop his setting. The
filmmaker’s work finally feels as though it’s stressing a
collaborative approach, allowing its cast to stand out above all
of the conventions of the typical art-film rather than indulging
in the creative-choices of Green the Auteur.
Greatly aiding
Green’s sharpened style are his actors, who all ensure that the
potential of their characters is fully realized. Kate Beckinsale
does a wonderful job in crafting a woman who is flawed and
wonderful at the same time; as much as her life becomes a
walking tragedy, she may just be the heroine of the film.
Meeting Beckinsale every step of the way is Sam Rockwell, who
realistically depicts the angst of a man who creates every
reason for himself to fail but still vies for success, probably
because he sees everything in black-and-white. On the younger
end of the spectrum, Michael Angarano and Olivia Thirlby are
luminous, intimately capturing a beautiful portrait of
bittersweet young love within the confines of life’s hardships.
Thirlby in particular yanked at my heartstrings; her performance
is one of the best of the year so far.
The movie also
boasts a trait that has been uniformly excellent in all Green
pictures; the transcendent cinematography of his longtime
director of photography, Tim Orr. With frames filled by both
billowy, white snow and isolated, yearning emotions, Orr never
ceases to allow the film’s rich imagery strengthen its tone and
themes. Orr also joins Green on his next project, Pineapple
Express, a stoner comedy coming out this summer. That
picture will certainly mark a change of pace for the two, who
have only attempted to crack a handful of smiles over the course
of four pictures. After Snow Angels, however, I can’t
wait to see what they do with the thing. Even if I have
expressed the aforementioned reservations about Green’s career
in the past, this terrific motion picture proves that he’s
capable of putting out work that rivals that of any other
writer/director working in the Industry today.
-Danny Baldwin,
Bucket Reviews
Review Published
on: 3.18.2008
Screened on:
3.13.2008 at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood, CA.
Snow Angels is rated R and runs 106
minutes.
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