Snow Angels Movie Review

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 4, 2008

Sometimes films are made not to necessarily make money, but to serve as a form of art. Usually, I get annoyed at directors whose movies are clearly personal artistic endeavors, yet they still get annoyed at the public for not embracing the film at the mainstream level.

While I didn’t think David Gordon Green’s film Snow Angels was flawless, it is clear that he made the film for himself and his own artistic sector, and he won’t be hurt or offended if it never cracks the mainstream nugget.

And I can respect that.

Snow Angels isn’t your typical film, even for its own indefinable non-genre. It’s a movie about bizarre, quirky characters, but never clings to the concept as hard as something like Napoleon Dynamite. It’s also an examination of dysfunctional families, but holds a level of reality so it doesn’t become a circus like The Family Stone. And it sets in motion multiple characters and storylines but never gets as pretentious as Crash or as convoluted as Magnolia.

And at its heart, it’s a tragedy, but that grim nature sneaks up on you and doesn’t permeate the film.

The movie takes place in a small town where a teenager is winding out of his school year. His mother is distant, and his only friend is a little strange herself. One of the women in the town named Annie (Kate Beckinsale) is trying to raise her daughter while her mentally disturbed husband (Sam Rockwell) is trying to get his life back in order.

The movie has a wandering focus, and for people who like gloomy independent film, it’s about your speed. Ultimately, Snow Angels is an actor’s movie, focusing on character nuances rather than being a film for the story as a whole.

I’ve always enjoyed when a filmmaker casts against type, especially when a gamble like this works. Green gives us a nice look into the acting talents of typically funny people, like Amy Sedaris, by giving them more dramatic material.

Still, even thought it’s not a comedy, there are moments that are so delightfully accurate in terms of interpersonal relationships and strange things people say. It’s not the story or even the film as a whole that I liked the most, but I did respect and appreciated the chances Green took to make the film different than anything you might see out there today. Sometimes these chances worked, like Tom Noonan’s hilarious improv last-day speech for a mediocre marching band; others did not, like some abrupt camera moves that literally leave the action behind.

THE UPSIDE: Offers some interesting and alternative choices for the audience.

THE DOWNSIDE: Gets a little heavy for my tastes.

ON THE SIDE: My favorite line in the film is Tom Noonan’s “I’ve got a sledgehammer in my heart,” which was an improvised line because they weren’t sure they’d get the rights to Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” for the production..

Read more articles by Kevin Carr