SNOW ANGELS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2008 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
The wildly overrated writer and director David Gordon Green (UNDERTOW, ALL
THE REAL GIRLS and GEORGE WA****NGTON) always has critics lining up to gush
over his works. All of his slow and monotonic films, however, leave me as
cold as the clumps of old snow that are everywhere in his latest film,
SNOW
ANGELS, another of his slice-of-small-town-life tales.
About a large host of characters, most of whom are in failed or failing
marriages, the story is uniformly inconsequential, save for a pair of
brief,
dramatic episodes. If I had ever bought the characters, perhaps I would
have cared. But, since I never found any of the characters particularly
believable or sympathetic, I never cared about what happened to them in
the
movie.
Certainly Green has all of the stereotypes covered. Kate Beckinsale, for
example, plays Annie, a married waitress who sleeps with the husband of
her
best friend, Barb (Amy Sedaris), a fellow waitress. Annie's husband Glenn
(Sam Rockwell) is a religious kook, a born-again Christian, alcoholic and
all-around loser who has trouble getting and keeping jobs. (There are
several other similarly clichéd characters.)
Annie and Glenn, who aren't currently living together, have a darling
little
girl, Tara (Gracie Hudson), who appears to be about three years old.
Glenn
is the completely clueless type of dad, who leaves his daughter alone in
the
car.
The characters all share a sense of loneliness, sadness and impending
doom.
Like walking black holes, they are the types of people that you'd want to
avoid if possible.
A complete waste of time, the film left me struggling to find something
positive to say about it. Usually, I can think of something I liked, but
the best I can say about SNOW ANGELS is that I didn't hate it. It wasn't
a
bad film. It was just a completely pointless and inconsequential one.
SNOW ANGELS runs 1:46. It is rated R for "language, some violent content,
brief ***uality and drug use" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, April 4, 2008.
In
the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century
theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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