Product Details

• Actors: Kerry Fox, Alexia Keogh, Karen Fergusson, Iris Churn, Jessie Mune
• Directors: Jane Campion
• Writers: Janet Frame, Laura Jones
• Producers: Bridget Ikin, John Maynard
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: New Line Home Video
• VHS Release Date: April 16, 1996
• Run Time: 158 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303980368
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #252,602 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

Originally produced as a three-part miniseries for New Zealand television, this extraordinary film is based on the life of Janet Frame, an introverted, sensitive girl who was later misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and spent eight years in a psychiatric hospital. She would later become one of New Zealand's most celebrated poets and novelists, publishing her first books while she was still confined to a mental ward. She had endured over 200 electroshock treatments and had almost been lobotomized by careless physicians who took no time to understand that she was merely awkward and shy and suffered from little more than routine depression. From a solid screenplay by Laura Jones, director Jane Campion (The Piano) tells this story without soapy melodrama, but rather as an exploration of a challenged creative spirit--a journey into a writer's mind, exploring the power of imagination as a mechanism of survival and self-defense. Three talented actors play Janet Frame at different ages throughout the film, with Kerry Fox giving a powerful performance as the young-adult Janet, whose own skill and creative tenacity would prove to be her salvation. Frightening, harrowing, and ultimately a source of humanistic enlightenment, An Angel at My Table (titled after Frame's autobiography) is a film you won't soon forget. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

Based on the autobiography of the New Zealand novelist and poet Janet Frame. The film covers the first forty years or so of the writer's life-she was born in 1924-and takes close to three hours to tell the story. When it's all over, you feel that you know far too little about Janet Frame and far too much about the film's director, Jane Campion. The movie (which was made as a three-part miniseries for Australian television) is a succession of odd, mannered tableaux, more or less in the style of Campion's 1990 art-house hit, "Sweetie." The compositions emphasize the peculiarities of Janet's appearance, especially in her childhood and awkward adolescence: she has a stiff, frizzy mop of bright-orange hair, and her teeth are badly decayed. The Janet Frame we see in this film doesn't seem to have an inner life, and without that she has no life at all. Even the most dramatic events in her life are treated so flatly and elliptically that we're unable to respond; time after time, we find that we can't orient ourselves in crucial scenes, because the director hasn't bothered to establish the characters or the setting. Writers' lives are weird enough without being subjected to this sort of willful disruption of their emotional continuity. Campion's perverse exercise in biographical filmmaking deserves a new title: "My Incomprehensible Career." Janet is played by three actresses: as a child, by Alexia Keogh; as a young teen-ager, by Karen Fergusson; and, as an adult, by Kerry Fox. Screenplay by Laura Jones. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE, August 10, 2002

By 

"valeska_" (The Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Angel at My Table [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Based on the autobiographies of Janet Frame. And from director Jane Campion (The Piano)

This is a wonderful portrait of the New Zealand author. Who was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic, she endured numerous treaments of electric shock therapy (over 200!) Spent eight traumatic years in a mental institution. And came very close to having a lobotomy!

It would be years before she would find the diagnosis of schizophrenia was wrong.

This movie examines Janet's early life to adulthood. A very hard childhood hampered by poverty. And many tragedies. Her older sister, Myrtle, drowned when Janet was young. One of her other sisters Isabel died (also by drowning!) when Janet was in college. And her older brother suffered from epilesy. In a time when there was not more they could do about it. He often had seizures, made him a vulnerable target for bullies at school, and it left him unfit for most work. And Janet herself suffered with terribly painful decaying teeth, she had to have ALL of them pulled at a very young age.

After her thankful release from the hospital she then went on a trip, first to England then to Spain. Where she met a young American poet, who she would formed her first relationship with.

It is a long film, but don't let that discourage you. There is never a dull moment. It's a facinating story. It's visually beautiful. Filled with tragedy but also funny and wonderfully touching moments. And the performances are fabulous. About an incredible woman who wasn't schizophrenic...just "different"

It's always remained one of my favorite films, the kind I can watch over and over.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, hauntingly brilliant., April 19, 1999

By 

Golden Girls fan "Adam" (Alabama, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Angel at My Table [VHS] (VHS Tape)

As a writer I can clearly understand the world Janet Frame lived in growing up. I myself was sent to a shrink for being a writer as well as for being shy and introverted. However, this is an outstanding drama of human proportions. It echoes forthcoming images of what Campion did with "The Piano" three years after she made this film. The life of Janet Frame is beautifully realized from her youthful days with a lower-class family, suffering heartbreak, loss, labeled as insane, and finding ultimate redemption in her talent as a writer. The film explores both her personal and social conflicts as well as with the men who changed her life and stirred her emotions. Very few writers and directors can ever tell a story so vividly real and powerful as Campion and Laura Jones have done here. It should offer hope and strength to those who have great dreams of success in this life yet feel mowed down by overnight sensations and those who threaten to tear down their goals. The music score adds to the emotion this film evokes. The world of a writer was never more stunningly pictured than how it is here. I highly recommend this film, especially to my fellow writers out there in this world. It is a gem of a film from one of the most gifted writers and directors our movie industry has ever known.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Genius in the Family, April 26, 2000

By 

I. Rodriguez - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Angel at My Table [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A unique and original work from a gifted film artist. It tells the story of Janet Frame, one of New Zealand's most important writers. The film follows Janet's life from the time she's a small girl in school, trying to buy friends with candy, to the adult, painfully shy introvert played by Kerry Fox. It is an insightful look at the life of a woman who finally learns to appreciate herself. Remarkable.