Angela's Ashes [15]

Directed by Alan Parker.

The novel Angela's Ashes is known to many as the winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize: one might expect similarly high results on the popularity front from this film directed by Alan Parker, who takes the credit(?) for Evita. The film is a languid look at the grand operatics of Irish life in the 1930s from the first-person narrative perspective of the young Frank McCourt and is filled with all those clichés which we expect from a film about poor Catholic Ireland. Three young unknown Irish actors play McCourt during his early life (but just watch how they can't smooth over the age gap) - Joe Breen (9), Ciaran Owens (13), and Michael Legge (20), and they demonstrate that unknown actors can do the job with panache. Robert Carlyle is cast as McCourt's alcoholic father and Emily Watson as his mother - the Angela of the title, who despite dire poverty always appears well dressed in each scene while her sons are sent to school humorously ill-shod.

The film begins in Brooklyn (New York) in 1935, and one might expect it to blossom into a tale of grand fortunes and the fruits of the American Dream. Instead, the family make the retrogressive move back to Ireland in a hopeful search for better things. The family are turning their back on the death of their daughter Margaret - but infant mortality proves to be no better back in Ireland. This aspect of the film is deeply depressing - but don't be put off, because although the young McCourt does not understand death he does find a way of coping with it. Although they must be the most needy family in Limerick the father just cannot stop himself drinking when the money comes in; making life for his children more difficult and his own future job prospects much more remote. The one virtue to which they all cling is hope: hope that one day they will find better lives. They all cling to their Catholic Faith and believe, in the manner of the American Dream which they left behind, that things will turn out for the best. This guides them through the death, poverty, sexual repression, and tyranny of their teachers and Grandmother - all of which make up the social fabric that is Limerick life.

Amidst all this are lighter moments, like when Frank's Grandmother makes him a First Communion Breakfast (and the fast had been a long one) which is promptly thrown up. Exclaiming 'God is in my back yard' she drags Frank back to the Priest for his second - and third - confession within the space of two minutes; in exasperation the Priest retorts that Grandmother should rinse the yard with 'ordinary' rather than 'holy' water! After Frank McCourt struggles to support his mother and brothers by himself he is still able to cling to his dream of America and the film ends with his leaving Ireland with a heart full of hope that he can get away from the poverty which had dominated his childhood. An excellent film which proves that Alan Parker can make something to jusitify his own criticisms against the industry.

Andrew Knowles (Unverified), 31/10/00

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