Angel (2007/I)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

François Ozon

Writers:

Elizabeth Taylor (novel)
François Ozon (written by)

Release Date:

14 March 2007 (Belgium)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

A dreary city tenement provides backdrop to this tale of exclusion and the magic it takes to become accepted.

Plot:

The rise and fall of a young eccentric British writer, in the early 20th century.

Plot Keywords:

Rags To Riches | 1900s | Publisher | Author | Mother Daughter Relationship

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Romola Garai	...	Angel Deverell
Sam Neill	...	Théo
Lucy Russell	...	Nora Howe-Nevinson
Michael Fassbender	...	Esmé
Charlotte Rampling	...	Hermione
Jacqueline Tong	...	Mother Deverell
Janine Duvitski	...	Aunt Lottie
Christopher Benjamin	...	Lord Norley
Tom Georgeson	...	Marvell
Simon Woods	...	Clive Fennelly
Jemma Powell	...	Angelica
Alison Pargeter	...	Edwina
Seymour Matthews	...	Norley Doctor
Una Stubbs	...	Miss Dawson
Jo Perrin	...	Publisher's secretary

Runtime:

134 min | Germany:119 min

Country:

UK | Belgium | France

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Netherlands:12 | Germany:6 (cut) | Canada:PG | South Korea:15 | Hong Kong:IIB | Singapore:M18 | Sweden:7 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

Fidélité Productions

Trivia:

When Garai first went to the audition for this film, the director turned her away because she was looking too 'rough'. The actress came back again, all dressed up, and ended up winning the role of Angel.

Ozon seems to have missed the point

What a disappointment. It's hard to know what attracted Ozon to Elizabeth Taylor's fantastic source novel as his adaptation is misjudged on a number of levels. Although he slavishly sticks to Taylor's plot, Ozon has real problems with - or chooses to ignore - the very things that are at the heart of the novel. Taylor's ironic, often cruel wit is missing. Characters are softened in the way one would expect of Hollywood, but not of French cinema. He doesn't seem able to master Taylor's irony at all - the audience at last night's London Film Festival screening were very confused about where and when they should laugh. It was impossible to know what the director felt about the characters. Almost entirely missing was Taylor's exceptional portrait of class - one of the major themes of the novel. The film felt like a classic Europudding - rootless in an implausible world. There was very little sense of being in Edwardian Britain.

The film is overwrought and out of control. If I hadn't already read the novel, I would have been completely puzzled by what I was watching and how I was supposed to respond or feel.