AFI Review: Snow Angels

AFI Dallas is over, but we have just a couple more reviews from the more than capable Adrienne Gruben. Think of it as tidying up after the party. Here, her thoughts on Snow Angels, directed by Richardson native David Gordon Green. If readers of Gruben’s reviews for us think she hasn’t seen a movie she didn’t love, Snow Angels nips that notion in the bud. Check it out.

—

A prodigal son’s return can be complicated. His siblings can feel a mixture of excitement and dread or sometimes they’ll feign apathy. I was lucky enough to be in Dublin to write about the hometown premiere of U2 3D. From the well-dressed politically savvy cabbies to the art gallery girls, Dubliners felt familial towards, possessive of, and defensive about the “lads” (as they’re lovingly referred). Everyone will tell you that their Mom goes to Bono’s Mom’s church, and that he can be a [insert offensive word here] when he wants to-except when they spotted him at the pub drinking a pint and when he gave all that money to those poor people. But his wife Ali? She’s a great, great lady.

And so it was with great sensitivity towards objectivity that I approached Richardson HS grad David Gordon Green’s new directorial effort Snow Angels. Not only did he return home, but he brought super-cute (but smaller in person) Sam Rockwell with him. Prodigal son returns with cute friend? A+ already. The packed audience was pumped and then charmed when Green sweetly introduced the film, remembering to thank Stewart O’Nan, the author of the adapted novel. My mood was super-good because lit agent David Hale Smith, an important thread in the AFI Fest fabric, had me walk the red carpet with a few cohorts, which is always exciting for folks who aren’t really supposed to be there. And I had my popcorn. So I was ready to love the film.

Snow Angels begins at presumably the only Chinese restaurant in a grey, snow kissed, unpretentious town, and immediately introduces us to the white, working-class staff: Arthur (Michael Angarano), the sit-in-the-corner-and-smile-from-underneath-his-bushy-bangs high schooler, Arthur’s former babysitter, Annie (Kate Beckinsdale), the stunning, recently separated single-Mom with terrible family troubles and Barb (Amy Sedaris), the raunchy cut-up.

In a series of sweet, spare seamlessly expositional scenes, we learn that Arthur is a trombonist in the school-band, his outlet for coping with a blossoming romance, the recent departure of his self-indulgent, prof Dad, and his maturing relationship with his Mom (Jeanetta Arnette who owns any room she’s in). Barb is in a troubled marriage with NOTE THE CONTRADICTION! nurse/lothario Nate (the superbly subtle Nicky Katt) who is sleeping with, among others, Annie, who is just trying to nail how to gracefully raise her daughter Tara, caretake her sick Mother, and manage her relationship with Glenn, Sam Rockwell’s manic man-child, who we later learn is more than just a little unstable.

From The Ice Storm to The Gilmore Girls, give me drama or comedy about a group of troubled eccentrics in a chilly little town anywhere from Oregon to the Carolinas, and I’m a cup of cocoa and a family-owned trinket shop away from a five-star review. But not Snow Angels. If the movie were only about the moments of quiet between the members of Arthur’s family or Nate and Barb, we’d be alright. But the direction bites off more than it can chew with Annie and Glenn. An over-extended, flu-afflicted Annie falls asleep, which allows for the ever curious Tara to sneak out the door into the freezing cold. As the entire town embarks on Tara’s search, Glenn’s mania escalates in perfect synch with Annie’s despondence, and all I will say is that things don’t end well.

My chief complaints are that when you are letting mental illness unfold on screen, nuance is key. We’ve already seen Jack Nicholson’s take on it in The Shining and the tonal corollary, cutesy mental illness, like in Benny and Joon. Simply dialing up the volume, the way Green and Rockwell have chosen to do, does not suffice, unless Jason is taking Manhattan again, and then, my popcorn fits right in. And without giving away too much, punishing a woman for making a parenting mistake to the degree that she is here is misogyny disguised as edginess, and not disguised very well. I desperately wanted this film to be great because when a local boy makes good-again-it makes all of us look good. I have faith that the guy who made George Washington has more great storytelling in him. Just not this time. — Adrienne Gruben