IMDb RATING
6.3/10
1.2K
YOUR RATING
Rebecca Miller's riveting drama examines how two sisters cope with their mother's mental illness.Rebecca Miller's riveting drama examines how two sisters cope with their mother's mental illness.Rebecca Miller's riveting drama examines how two sisters cope with their mother's mental illness.
- Awards
- 4 wins & 1 nomination total
Miranda Rhyne
- Angela
- (as Miranda Stuart Rhyne)
Charlotte Eve Blythe
- Ellie
- (as Charlotte Blythe)
Caitlin Hall
- Anne
- (as Sara Caitlin Hall)
Frances Conroy
- Anne's Mother
- (as Francis Conroy)
Rodger Phillips
- Frank
- (as Rodger L. Phillips)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Featured reviews
Rebecca Miller's haunting tale of a young girl driven by her religious obsessions into a frightening world of hallucinogenic images and superstitious delusion. There are touching performances by the two principal girl actors, Miranda Stuart Rhyne and Charlotte Eve Blythe. Rhyne, in particular, is engaging as the young protagonist caught in a heavenly struggle between good and evil to save her mentally ill mother. She convincingly portrays Angela as a determined and feisty but naive and vulnerable child in equal measure; someone who is headstrong but literally open to abuse.
There is a fine director's commentary on the DVD narrated by Miller exploring the themes and motivations that went into the making of the film.
There is a fine director's commentary on the DVD narrated by Miller exploring the themes and motivations that went into the making of the film.
This is an amazing if bizarre film. The acting of the two little girls is superb and far surpasses those of child actors in big budget studio films.
I've read some disturbing posts accusing this film of child exploitation, particularly in the use of nudity. The nudity in this film is as innocent as a baby on a bearskin rug, but too many narrow-minded morons with internet access confuse this with pornography.
The use of nudity in this film is a bit artsy, but very natural and represents the only beauty in these girls lives. Swimming nude with their mother the only time in their lives they've experienced joy. But the religious views of Angela makes her see herself as sinful, and her sister as unclean. This film could have been improved by more nudity to show how this budding adolescent views her own body. She already has a negative view of sexuality. But it's an issue no American filmmaker would dare explore, and I don't blame them.
This is where the film becomes a near-satire of the dangers of blind faith in fear-based religions. This view of sin and uncleanliness leads Angela down a dangerous path but in her innocence, she doesn't view her actions as having negative consequences on her sister.
Without giving any spoilers, Ellie experiences true freedom at the end only by experiencing, in the director's words, "an intense emotional experience."
The only negative comment I have is I already know ahead of time how society views films of this nature. I'm surprised to see that few religious nuts who have seen this film never recognized it as a criticism of their faith. No one seems to be able to get over the sight of a naked baby to be able to do that.
tlyoung88
I've read some disturbing posts accusing this film of child exploitation, particularly in the use of nudity. The nudity in this film is as innocent as a baby on a bearskin rug, but too many narrow-minded morons with internet access confuse this with pornography.
The use of nudity in this film is a bit artsy, but very natural and represents the only beauty in these girls lives. Swimming nude with their mother the only time in their lives they've experienced joy. But the religious views of Angela makes her see herself as sinful, and her sister as unclean. This film could have been improved by more nudity to show how this budding adolescent views her own body. She already has a negative view of sexuality. But it's an issue no American filmmaker would dare explore, and I don't blame them.
This is where the film becomes a near-satire of the dangers of blind faith in fear-based religions. This view of sin and uncleanliness leads Angela down a dangerous path but in her innocence, she doesn't view her actions as having negative consequences on her sister.
Without giving any spoilers, Ellie experiences true freedom at the end only by experiencing, in the director's words, "an intense emotional experience."
The only negative comment I have is I already know ahead of time how society views films of this nature. I'm surprised to see that few religious nuts who have seen this film never recognized it as a criticism of their faith. No one seems to be able to get over the sight of a naked baby to be able to do that.
tlyoung88
Beautifully shot, and miller does a wonderful job of creating a sense of unease and tension throughout, which makes everything unpredictable and terrifying all at once. I love how it approaches the mental illness aspect and like most movies I've seen recently, doesn't treat it as a horror device. It presents it as it really would be, a person slowly slipping away from your eyes, which in my opinion is more terrifying than any horror monster ever could be. The devil constantly tempted her, and her view that she must clean herself of her sins to reach serenity like her mother wasn't able to reach (her saying to vincent gallo baptist "do it again" during her baptism). It is that childhood innocence that this movie understands so well, which ultimately leads to even more hurt for angela. It also doesn't take this poverty angle and make everything disgusting as a result, everything feels real and lived in, and there is always a feeling like dirt is always on the floor. One of the few movies that understand small-town poverty, and how they go to religion for any sense of help or comfort. Doesn't shy away from saying that mental illness will slowly eat away the people you love, you are next, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
The ten year-old Angela (Miranda Stuart Rhyne) and her little sister Ellie (Charlotte Blythe) move to an old house in the countryside with her parents Mae (Anna Thomson) and Andrew (John Ventimiglia). Their mother has mental illness and has just left an institution and her husband tries to keep the dysfunctional family together. Angela is an imaginative disturbed girl that might have inherited the illness of her mother and is obsessed by purification to get rid of her sins; and has visions of the fallen angel Lucifer and the Virgin Mary. She leads her little sister in her paranoia and uses a circle of toys and dolls to protect them against evil. They have a crazy neighbor that Angela believes is an angel and she asks the woman how to find the way to heaven. When Mae returns to the institution, Angela becomes uncontrollable in her quest to heaven.
"Angela" is a weird and bizarre film about mental illness and religious paranoia. Angela seems to have inherited the mental disorder of her mother, having vision of Lucifer and Virgin Mary, and fantasizing purification processes to cleanse the sins to reach heaven. The worst is that she drags her little sister in her fantasy. The tragic conclusion is expected. It is impressive the number of times that the microphone is visible. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): 'Angela: Nas Asas da Imaginação' ("Angela: In the Wings of the Imagination")
"Angela" is a weird and bizarre film about mental illness and religious paranoia. Angela seems to have inherited the mental disorder of her mother, having vision of Lucifer and Virgin Mary, and fantasizing purification processes to cleanse the sins to reach heaven. The worst is that she drags her little sister in her fantasy. The tragic conclusion is expected. It is impressive the number of times that the microphone is visible. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): 'Angela: Nas Asas da Imaginação' ("Angela: In the Wings of the Imagination")
ANGELA whisks the viewer away into the nightmare of a young girl threatened with the loss of her very world through the crumbling psychology of her mother. Rebecca Miller's film brings thoroughly to bloom the essence of a dangerous imagination which plays out like a Greek tragedy in the lives of Angela and her little sister on a quest to save themselves from the devil. The devil himself white as chalk and winged appears to warn them that he soon will claim the family. A helpless father cannot bind together the broken bridges and fallen stars of his wife, a Marilyn Monroe-like singer who can only perpetuate the failures of her life, spreading them like termites to envelope any stability her family could muster. It seems then to ANGELA that she in her innocence must bear that burden and find by way of a stray horse a black cat who she believes give her messages to where she can find the holy grail of her family's salvation, and this to a desperate end.
Did you know
- GoofsBoom mic visible. Several times throughout the film, a boom mic (and even part of the boom) is VERY clearly visible, mostly in outdoor scenes when the boom was more necessary. This is a masking problem on an early DVD release, and is probably present on any VHS release as well (the DVD is likely transferred from the VHS). The movie was filmed in academy ratio with the intent to mask it to widescreen, in which it was shown in theaters. When telecined to VHS/DVD for home use to watch on your TV set, or perhaps even for TV broadcast, it wasn't masked: black bars were not placed over the top and bottom to make it letterboxed for widescreen. This was commonly done in Pan&Scan versions of many theatrical movies for TV broadcast and VHS release so you could get the whole screen without those annoying black bars which would give you a smaller amount of image to squint at. Unfortunately, with the whole screen image you also get portions of the image that were not meant to be seen, such as boom mics and track lights on the top and cables and camera dolly tracks and crew-members feet on the bottom. Older DVD releases of many movies just copied the full-screen without remasking it, which would require a whole new telecine transfer from the original film source. Even some newer DVD releases INCORRECTLY masked some movies, as the bars either weren't covering enough or were disproportional (covering too much on top and too little on bottom or vice-versa), since the widescreen aspect ratio varies and WHERE you put the masks can vary in a single movie. This is a big controversy, and happens more frequently than you might think; see the 3-DVD release of the Back To The Future trilogy for a famous example of improper masking. Pretty much, whenever you see boom mics visible, it is almost always a masking problem on a video release (TV broadcast or VHS or DVD transfer); it is not the fault of the director or cinematographer or editor.
- Quotes
[Angela tackles the boy who threw a doll at her sister, Ellie]
Angela: You could've killed my sister!
[the boy doesn't say anything, so she turns to Ellie]
Angela: Sit on his head.
[Ellie sits on the boy's head]
Tom: Get the kid away from me!
Angela: Apologize or she'll fart!
Tom: Sorry...
Angela: Say, I'm very, very, sorry, Ellie and I love your smile.
Tom: I'm very, very, sorry, Ellie and I love your smile.
Angela: Okay, Ellie. Take it away.
[Ellie gets up]
- ConnectionsReferenced in Wear (2015)
- How long is Angela?Powered by Alexa
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