Angela's Ashes

Directed by Alan Parker

With Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle, Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, Michael Legge and others

Christina says:

Since they haven’t been able to live their American Dream the McCourt family turn their backs on the Statue of Liberty and return to Ireland where they at least can rely on their relatives to help them. His mother-in-law (Ronnie Masterson) doesn’t think much of Malachy McCourt (Robert Carlyle) because he can’t provide for his wife and children. As a protestant from Northern Ireland he has a hard time in strictly catholic Limerick. He can’t keep any job and spends his money for booze. The family of six lives under conditions that are barely fit for human beings. Mother Angela (Emily Watson) struggles to keep them alive. It is she who bears the scorn of the clerks at the welfare office, fights with other women for the bits of food the priest throws out or calls on the money lender because her husband is too proud for such errands. The story is told from the point of view of her oldest son Frank (first Joe Breen, then Ciaran Owens and finally Michael Legge) who has but one goal: to get out of Limerick where a boy like him can never get anywhere and to return to America.

The movie opens with the narrator’s declaration that this naturally is the story of an unhappy childhood because that of a happy childhood doesn’t have to be told. More than two hours later I am convinced that the story of many an unhappy childhood doesn’t have to be told either. At least not like this. Alan Parker lets a full load of misery rain down on the audience – literally. Forget Ireland, the Green Island. Not that I’m not grateful he left out at least this one cliché. All the rest of them are there: the mother sitting with a crying baby by the dying fire complaining that there’s no food, the father who carries every penny to the pub where he throws his weight about, the energetic and pious grandmother, the childless dragon of an aunt who gets to show her tender heart in the end, fanatic teachers wielding the cane, and hordes of children, mostly boys, who fight, sneak into the movie theater and do other things they have to confess later.

All this flips past in a wild kaleidoscope and hardly ever Parker stops long enough to take a proper look at things. When he does the moment is crowned by a cute and touching kiddie saying or a bitterly cynical remark by Angela waking from her lethargy to tell her husband how useless he is. At one point Frankie names the reasons why he loves his father anyway. The background voice has to explain what the movie doesn’t show. It’s easier to be on Angela’s side. In the end Malachy deserts her and his family and alone she is even less able to escape poverty. Parker, however, doesn’t explore the special relationship of mother and son.

Although the story spans more than a decade the only sign of age on Emily Watson is that she wears her hair in a bun in the end, which doesn’t seem appropriate given what she’s been through. And even if there’s no food and babies freeze to death the McCourt’s situation is never so desperate that there’s no money for cigarettes. Be grateful for small favors.

ANGELA’S ASHES is a well-acted and not too sugary sob story. You can watch it, but don’t have to go out in the rain to catch it.

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Christina Gross

Last changes: 01/04/03