Tragic Angels

Snow Angels

(R)

originally published May 14, 2008

I don’t agree with, but I understand why, most American filmgoers would choose Ashton and Cameron’s Vegas-based shenanigans over David Gordon Green’s deliberate, unstylized recreation of small-town desperation. After spending five days in your own shitty life, the last thing you want to do for fun is watch fake people deal with infidelity, marital dissolution and murderous, suicidal disenchantment; watching some overpaid, under-talented bubbleheads “outwit” one another for $3 million has a certain lazy charm about it.

The above does not excuse the moviegoing public’s willful ignorance of spectacular, difficult films like Snow Angels; those who see this beautiful, chilly study will surely back up my assertion that the general public is missing out on some great cinema. Films like Snow Angels are good for you like green vegetables or fiber, or whatever you don’t like to eat, though you desperately need more lest you succumb to junk food-induced obesity.

Though Snow Angels opens mysteriously enough, with gunshots echoing over a football field covered by a marching band practicing Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer,” the film is not a paint-by-numbers whodunit. Astute audience members will have correctly narrowed the list of suspects in a hurry. "Who" matters much less to DGG than "why." The filmmaker immerses the audience in small town minutiae, until we’re drowning just like frustrated Annie (Kate Beckinsale), who is separated from her husband, high school sweetheart and father of her little girl, Glenn. Annie and Glenn’s life wasn’t supposed to include separation, attempted suicide and waitressing at the local Chinese restaurant. The two were meant to be forever happy like Arthur (Michael Angarano), Annie’s former charge and current coworker, and Lila (Olivia Thirlby), the artsy new girl who is smitten with the Red Hot Marching Band trombonist.

Yet tragedy begets tragedy, and the denizens of Snow Angels face one more before the climactic identification of the gunshot victims. Along the way, DGG pulls a couple of sharp camera moves from his bag of tricks, but mostly, the director wisely relies on his words and his actors. Snow Angels intensely reenacts the depressing reality of many Americans' daily existence. While to some (including myself), the film is an impressive, expressive work of (not perfect) art; to others, it simply hits too close to home. That’s why Vegas exists.

Drew Wheeler