Snow Angels Review
by Steve Rhodes (steve DOT rhodes AT internetreviews DOT com)April 3rd, 2008
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 WASHINGTON) 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 sexuality 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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