Angela's Ashes

Rating:
Summary: Touching.
Review: Very seldom do films based upon a literary work stay true to the original text. Even more rare are films that are successful in such a venture. ANGELA'S ASHES is such a film. The film is an almost word for word adaptation of McCourt's beloved memoir and is full of all the novel's pathos and sympathy. The characters are real and the story is moving.

The narration of the film, both adds and detracts from the movie's impact. The novel was very depressing, but was also filled with a self-depreciating wit and humor that lightened the seriousness of the situations described. In the movie, almost all of the scenes that contain any humor are the ones that include the narration. At the same time, the narration often does distract the audience from the drama occuring on screen.

The acting is superb and the story is touching. And even though I read the book and knew the outcome of McCourt's adventures, the movie left me in tears at the end. Great art tends to do that.

Rating:
Summary: Captures the hardships, misses the humor and spirit
Review: Angela's Ashes is based on Frank McCourt's best-selling memoir about growing up in the 1930s in a poverty stricken family in Limerick, Ireland. The movie tries valiantly to be faithful to the book, and even the author has been endlessly quoted as to how fine an adaptation it is. Yet something has been lost in transition, and sadly it is much of McCourt's dark and often rude humor, which is one of two elements that made the book so readable. The other element was his writing style, which is marvelous. I will return to the humor issue later.

After falling to succeed in New York, the McCourt family was forced to return to Ireland in 1935. Frank notes that they may be the only Irish family in history who immigrated back to that [then] miserably poor nation with it's [still] warring Protestants and Catholics. Within three years, the family loses three children to disease. When they first move back, they live in one room. When they finally get a rundown two-story row house, its front door opens onto the communal outhouse. It rains a lot in Limerick, and water runs into the first floor most of the year. The family resorts to living upstairs.

Dad [Robert Carlyse] has difficulty finding work, and the family lives on the dole [welfare]. The cards are stacked against Dad. He is a Protestant in a Catholic town, he is full of pride, and he drinks. On the rare occasions he finds work, he drinks the pay away and ends up getting fired. He is the primary reason the family is so poor. Carlyse plays him as an intelligent, affable but weak man. Much has been made about this character. How could any father and husband sit by and see his family suffer so much? Carlyse said in an interview that he finally decided to play Dad as what he must have been - an alcoholic. And if you view him this way, it all makes more sense. Remember, too, that his wife, Angela [Emily Watson], was from a culture where being married to a drunk was a life sentence. In her world, there were few options.

Besides the family woes, Frank must suffer through a dreadful Irish catholic school system where merely looking at a teacher the wrong way brings a swift rap on the knuckles. While the McCourt's were exceptionally poor, Ireland had been for many years one of the poorest nations in the Western world. As a result, even charities were often run by people who had become dour and mean-spirited. This is a study in survival. Frank eventually went back to America and became a noted English teacher and author. It seems a miracle that he did so.

The cast is fine. Of special note are the three young actors (Joe Breen, Cianan Owens, Michael Legge) who play Frank at different ages from six to sixteen. All do a good job, and the transitions from one Frank to the other are seamless. Watson and Carlyse are at their usual best and do well at acting as if the three 'Franks' are all one boy.

There are two things the movie does that detract from it. As I mentioned earlier, humor was a key ingredient in the book. In the film, most of that is lost. Some of the dialog is still there, but, because the tone of the film is so relentlessly grim, a lot of the lines are lost. It would have been better to have started the movie a little bit further into the book. As it is, within 25 movie minutes, Angela McCourt sees three of her children die. By this time, most viewers are totally bummed out or else wondering if this is for real. The narration throughout the picture is good, but it would have been so much better if McCourt had been the narrator. After all, they are his word, and he has a wonderful speaking voice.

Rating:
Summary: Does justice enough for me!
Review: Overall, I think the film does justice to the book as justice as a film can do. Obviously, the film cannot convey the powerful emotion though to the viewer as well as the book does. The actors did a brilliant job, especially Emily Watson and teenage Frank McCourt, played by the attractive Michael leg. The film won my commpassion just as the book did. The sogginess of the settings perhaps slightly puts you off a visit to Ireland. Though it is also enriched with history, and the acrhitectual structures are simply amazing. The ending leaves you hanging, as when the film came to a conclusion I felt deeply unsatisfied. Someone tell Mr.Parker to get of his behind and make something of the sequel 'Tis!

Rating:
Summary: A Pity, What They've Done, 'Tis
Review: For anyone who read the novel by Frank McCourt, "Angela's Ashes" would've been one of the most anticipated movies of the year. The book, which is terrific, takes you on an emotional roller coaster ride without cessation; there are passages so gripping it becomes almost unbearable at times. The movie, however, directed by Alan Parker and starring Robert Carlyle and Emily Watson, unfortunately doesn't come close to capturing the desperation, hopelessness and pathos of the book. McCourt's autobiographical account of growing up in extreme poverty in Limerick, Ireland, is a gut-wrenching experience; that he even survived his childhood under such conditions as he recounts is a minor miracle in itself. His father, Malachy McCourt Sr., (played by Carlyle in the movie), wasn't a bad man, in an evil sense; he was just no good. He loved his family, but was too weak, prideful and irresponsible to even begin to look after them at all. Though reasonably intelligent, apparently, he was nevertheless lazy to the point of slothfulness, couldn't keep a job even if he lucked into one, and most of the time didn't bother looking. He never had money to keep bread on the table, but somehow always managed to have enough for tobacco and for a "pint" at one of the local pubs. Carlyle, a fine actor (great in "The Full Monty"), never seems to get to the core of this admittedly complex character; the ability to mine the depths of what really made Malachy tick somehow eludes him. His performance is passable, but it's all on the surface. Emily Watson fares little better with her Angela. A Gifted actress (Breaking the Waves" and "Hilary and Jackie"), she handles what she is given to work with aptly enough, but there is so much more that simply goes untapped. She, too, never really seems to get to the soul of Angela, whose whole life was nothing less than tragic. And with such rich source material from which to draw, it's puzzling as to how this movie failed to deliver the emotional impact promised by the story. That Parker chose to use the same voice as the novel to tell it is one reason, possibly. The matter-of-fact, stoic narrative that worked to great advantage in the novel simply doesn't translate well to film, at least not in this case. Here, it merely falls flat; somehow it gives an ambivalence to the proceedings that keeps the young McCourt, his family and their circumstances, at arms length throughout. Visually, the movie is stunning, though; the cinematography successfully captures the bleakness of Limerick and the surrounding countryside. Parker, however, fails to blend it all in sufficiently enough with the actual story to make it effective. Using the same approach for visual content as he does for the emotional, he succeeds only in presenting an image without enticement. He asks his audience to bring more to this than they can, given what they are being offered; it simply isn't enough. Still, it in no way diminishes the artistic merit of the photography, which is, in fact, the high mark of this whole endeavor. The young McCourt is portrayed in three successive stages of his youth by Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens and Michael Legge; all able performances. The supporting cast includes Ronnie Masterson (Grandma Sheehan Keating), Pauline McLynn (Aunt Aggie Keating), Liam Carney (Uncle Pa Keating) and Eanna MacLiam (Uncle Pat Keating). For those who haven't read the novel, "Angela's Ashes" will provide some touching moments, though nothing particularly memorable. This should have been a ten-hanky movie; instead, it leaves the tear ducts dry and the heart just a little empty. This is an unfulfilling rendering of McCourt's acclaimed account of his childhood and, on a larger scale, the failure of society and of the Church to truly minister to all it's members. The humor, which is laced throughout the novel, is lost here as well, which is nothing less than negligence on the part of the filmmakers, because they have excluded what was undoubtedly one of young McCourt's basic tools of survival. In the end, then, this film, which should have been remarkable, was one of the biggest disappointments of the year. And it's a pity, yes. 'Tis.

Rating:
Summary: 'Tis a grand movie, indeed! :)
Review: Although the book is, of course, grander than the film could ever be, I found this film to be an excellent interpretation of Frank McCourt's best-selling novel. The cast was phenomenal, especially the young men who portrayed the various stages of Frank McCourt's youth. In addition, I felt that I identified very greatly with the McCourt family plight. While the book gave wonderful and colorful descriptions, I liked seeing what I had envisioned in my own mind on film. However, I do feel that the movie allows us to feel more sympathy than we probably should have been allowed to for Malachy McCourt, Sr. (Frank's father). The book gives us a more unsympathetic, and probably more realistic, spin on the McCourt patriarch. Nonetheless, I do recommend this movie, especially to those who have already read the book and to anyone interested in the Irish culture.

Rating:
Summary: Great production, but could be better
Review: All the anticipation of seeing how Alan Parker would bring Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize winner to the screen lead me to see this. Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle star as the parents of Frank McCourt as he grew up poor in Ireland in the mid 1930's. The film shows his progress from childhood to a young man coming to America as a teenager. But it does not have the aura and genuine feel of the book. It's as if someone took a highlighter and highlighted scenes to be filmed and tied together by the words of the unseen narrator. However the elements of sheer and lowdown poverty and sorrow are exquisitely captured and brought to life. The score by John Williams is among the best features of the film and it itself is a true masterpiece. Watson does a standout job as Angela, though she has little screen time and not as much as the title would implicate that she does. The film does not seem to leave one with the emotion of what truly are Angela's ashes, but more like the ashes of McCourt's years of struggle and plight. But then again, it is hard to give plot to a memoir that is as true as the heart of its author.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre movie of a classic book! READ THE BOOK!
Review: Emily Watson is one of my favorite screen actresses and here she does not disappoint. She gives a wonderfully undertated performance. Robert Carlyle is also very good as he usually is. The boys also give really nice performances.

The filmmakers do bring the wet locations to life - very much as they are imagined in the book.

The major thing missing is the "tone" of the book. The book is hilarious - you laugh at the innocence of the boys point of view. Share his triumphs and sad at the set backs. That is what does not work about this movie.

Also they left out a characted in the book (the little girl in the hospital) which was one of my favorite parts.

Skip the film - read the book.

Rating:
Summary: WHAT ASHES? SHOULD PERHAPS HAVE BEEN LEFT AS A BOOK
Review: I have not read the eponymous book, and after watching this despondent drivel I probably won't. One can just hope that the book did a more honest job of potraying Angela's memoirs.

The film is set in Limerick, which, from the looks of it, is in the middle of an incredibly wet rainforest. Two brothers grow up with a mother who struggles and begs to keep her family alive and together. The predictably antisocial father squanders every bit of money he ever earns on truckloads of alcohol.

We are shown slices of life in the coming-of-age up process, and how Frank finally gets the money to leave Ireland and come to America. The boys were no cherubs, but they survived without getting into too much trouble, and became literary lions in America. That's pretty much it.

The acting is good, especially by the boy who plays the teenage version of Frank McCourt. The cinematography stretches and scampers to be oh-so-noir, and is thus overwrought with dark pigmented colors almost all of the time. Background music is run of the mill, one that you would typically expect from movies of this nature.

What boggles me though is the touchy-feely title of the book/movie: Angela (the mother) does not die. Or did I miss something? Where are the ashes?

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book, Awful movie
Review: I loved this book so much. I was so in depth to every page. I read the book for my junior class book chat. I am so happy that I picked that book to read. The movie on the other hand, left out so many details. I recommend not watching the movie after reading the book. It will dissappoint you. Go ahead and watch the movie if you never read the book it might be very good to you. I am not much of a book reader, but I love to watch movies but this movie was really not good. Sorry to Mr. Frank McCourt who wrote such a wonderful book that his movie had to be so bad.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Movie
Review: This movie was indeed a great movie. The depiction of little Franky McCourt was great. The flick managed to pull through and follow the book at a whim but not by much. Key events and scenes are taken place but I think it lacks the true emotion of Francis McCourts story. Bottom line is READ THE BOOK.