Angel (2007)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The source book was a satire on a truly dreadful author of the late 19th century, a sort of Barbara Cartland, but only more schlocky. If the intent was to have fun on this idea it was missed and badly; if it was taken at face value, it is a sign of incipient idiocy.It plays the whole thing very straight and it seems as if no one saw that this is utter complete trash. Douglas Sirk used to take rubbish - real mediocre uneducated garbage - and make a thing with it as Fassbinder extolled him for doing. It looks as if Ozon has done a Fassbinder and taken real nonsense, which has become a joke cliché of romantic fiction and not seen that it had always been a joke; a wry in-joke on the reader, and on the original writer.Why anyone ever signed up to do this is curious - apart form the money. Why it was financed is even more puzzling. No doubt people will watch this in 10 and 50 years and see something else altogether but none of it will do anything for the creative team behind this.The classic, "Cold Comfort Farm" was a parody of the romantic rural fiction popular in the early 20th century and this work is a roman a clef of the same type of demotic garbage that is consumed in bulk.Under no circumstances go anywhere near this and wipe all playback technologies that may have accessed it.

Francois Ozon has always veered between two very distinct styles; the more realistic, almost gritty visual style found in films such as Under the Sand and Criminal Lovers, and the highly stylised camp of Sitcom and 8 Women.Angel definitely falls into the latter category, with its candy coloured visuals and big dramatic plot twists and character nuances harking back to the feel of Hollywood pictures from the 40s, like Gone With The Wind.Everything is designed to imitate this era of film-making from the score, the heavily melodramatic "rags-to-riches" storyline, to even the use of rear projection during the travelling scenes. These are all implemented to increase the unreality and fantasy of the film and give it that "classic movie" feel.At first I found the actual story and characters almost second fiddle to the look and sound of the film, but Ozon isn't out to parody, more to homage or pastiche. Angel's sudden and cartoony rise to being a prominent literary figure is silly and fun, but towards the end as her vision of fantasy starts clashing with reality, the film turns out to be unexpectedly moving.Angel is far from being a heavily moralising tale about true love and happiness over gaudy extreme and is more a joyous celebration of fantasy over reality, a wonderful pastiche of historical romance where the girl manages to win the grumpy gloomy bachelor and runs after him in the rain as they kiss passionately under a shining rainbow as the score swirls in that classic forties way you never hear anymore.It's a wonderful and funny and frivolous film and yet also tragic and moving at times. With this much love and joy up on screen it's such a shame some people seem to miss the point of it and criticise the "bad special effects" and "bad acting". Instead you should simply enjoy the deliberate unreality of the visuals, music and plot of this brilliant, sumptuous movie.

A group of girls march in succession toward their daily lesson, both their step and their outfits similar in fashion, until one girl breaks from the mold and finds herself at the gates of paradise, forced to gaze from afar. The girl is Angel, the title character from French director, Francois Ozon's first venture into English-language film. Don't let the name fool you though; there is nothing remotely angelic about her. She is spoiled, loud and delusional – everything you want in a heroine you're supposed to root for and just the kind of person you want to see get everything they desire. Right?Angel is a writer, not a very good writer but people love her. She refuses to live in the real world in favor of the perfect illusion she believes she has crafted for herself. It all raises many questions about success and talent, sanity and vanity, but no matter how wickedly she is played by Romola Garai, the woman is too wretched to inspire sympathy in the viewer and Ozon does nothing to help.Ozon's past efforts range in form from ridiculous and satirical to contemplative and tragic. His transition into the realm of period drama is daring considering the smaller size of his previous works but he juggles the elements well. In fact, he balances back and forth between the elaborate costumes, grandiose sets and exaggerated performances so well that it all feels rather plain. Considering how allergic Angel was to the mundane, I don't think she would have been very pleased with this. And trust me, you wouldn't like her mad.

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.