Angela (film)
Encyclopedia
Angela is a 1995 film, Rebecca Miller
's directorial debut. It won awards at the Sundance Film Festival
, the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film and the Gotham Awards.
with a dysfunctional family
. Her parents are former performers who have resigned themselves to the loss of their dreams. They are now having problems in their relationship. Her mother Mae (Anna Thomson) has drastic mood shifts that bring her from manic happiness to utter misery. Her father Andrew (John Ventimiglia
) tries to hold everyone together, but Mae's vacillations are becoming more than he can manage.
Angela tries to cope by inventing an imaginary universe of 'order' for herself and her little sister. Left to figure out everything for themselves, she grabs at scraps of religion
, superstition
, and fantasy
to try and make some sense out of the world and understand the difference between good and evil.
Adrift, she and her six-year-old sister Ellie (Charlotte Eve Blythe) concoct magical rituals and have visions of fallen angel
s and the Virgin Mary; reading signs in the way a towel falls off a chair or a tool falls off a truck, they set off to find their way to heaven
. They wander through the neighborhood, meet a lot of strange people, and try to find a way to absolve themselves of whatever 'sins' they may have committed, and 'go to heaven'.
At first, the stories that Angela tells her little sister are mainly meant to scare her into submission. But as time goes on, and her mother succumbs to mental illness
, Angela becomes obsessed with the idea that the only way her mother is going to get better is if she and her sister can wash away all of their sins.
Rebecca Miller
Rebecca Augusta Miller is an American film director, screenwriter and actress, most known for her films Personal Velocity: Three Portraits , The Ballad of Jack and Rose, and Angela,and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee all of which she wrote and directed.-Life and career:Born in Roxbury,...
's directorial debut. It won awards at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
, the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film and the Gotham Awards.
Plot
This film is the story of a young girl and her quest to "purify" herself. Angela (Miranda Stuart Rhyne) is a 10-year-old girl trying to copeCoping (psychology)
Coping has been defined in psychological terms by Susan Folkman and Richard Lazarus as "constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing" or "exceeding the resources of the person".Coping is thus expending...
with a dysfunctional family
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...
. Her parents are former performers who have resigned themselves to the loss of their dreams. They are now having problems in their relationship. Her mother Mae (Anna Thomson) has drastic mood shifts that bring her from manic happiness to utter misery. Her father Andrew (John Ventimiglia
John Ventimiglia
John Ventimiglia is an American actor, known for his role as Artie Bucco on the HBO television series The Sopranos. He has had parts in feature films such as Cop Land, Jesus' Son, and Mickey Blue Eyes and has appeared in numerous television shows including Law & Order and NYPD Blue...
) tries to hold everyone together, but Mae's vacillations are becoming more than he can manage.
Angela tries to cope by inventing an imaginary universe of 'order' for herself and her little sister. Left to figure out everything for themselves, she grabs at scraps of religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
, and fantasy
Fantasy (psychology)
Fantasy in a psychological sense is broadly used to cover two different senses, conscious and unconscious. In the unconscious sense, it is sometimes spelled "phantasy".-Conscious fantasy:...
to try and make some sense out of the world and understand the difference between good and evil.
Adrift, she and her six-year-old sister Ellie (Charlotte Eve Blythe) concoct magical rituals and have visions of fallen angel
Fallen angel
Fallen angel is a concept developed in Jewish mythology from interpretation of the Book of Enoch. The actual term fallen angel is not found in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. Christians adopted the concept of fallen angels mainly based on their interpretations of the Book of...
s and the Virgin Mary; reading signs in the way a towel falls off a chair or a tool falls off a truck, they set off to find their way to heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
. They wander through the neighborhood, meet a lot of strange people, and try to find a way to absolve themselves of whatever 'sins' they may have committed, and 'go to heaven'.
At first, the stories that Angela tells her little sister are mainly meant to scare her into submission. But as time goes on, and her mother succumbs to mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
, Angela becomes obsessed with the idea that the only way her mother is going to get better is if she and her sister can wash away all of their sins.