Movies
Angela's Ashes
Hardly a movie at all, more like a glossy picture-book supplement to Frank McCourt's best-selling memoir of growing up poor in Ireland. McCourt's prose has accordingly been whittled down to excerpted captions in service to the lavish illustrations. And very arty illustrations they are, too, predominantly in grim parsimonious gray-green monochrome. Filmmaker Alan Parker, extending the experience of poverty in all directions, asks the spectator to be satisfied with things like puking, peeing, and jerking off as narrative events. The employment of three different actors to span half a dozen years of the hero's childhood must set some sort of new record. We can only hope it will go unchallenged for eternity. With Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, Michael Legge, Robert Carlyle, Emily Watson. 1999.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: R
