Product Details

• Actors: Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle, Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, Michael Legge
• Directors: Alan Parker
• Writers: Alan Parker, Frank McCourt, Laura Jones
• Producers: Alan Parker, Adam Schroeder, David Brown, David Wimbury
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Special Edition, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount
• VHS Release Date: December 5, 2000
• Run Time: 145 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (112 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000507P6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,760 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Because Frank McCourt's bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Angela's Ashes was dearly embraced by millions of readers, it was perhaps inevitable that Alan Parker's film version would prove somewhat disappointing. McCourt's book is blessed with subtleties of language and detailed observation that do not easily lend themselves to screen interpretation, and Parker's film suffers from an overly literal, reverently somber approach that lacks the cumulative emotions of McCourt's account of impoverished youth in Ireland. And where McCourt was able to leaven his family's suffering with tenacious humor and fighting Irish spirit, Parker's film provides precious little uplift in the course of 145 minutes.

The film is by no means an artistic failure. While admirably avoiding sentiment, Parker is nearly peerless in his direction of children, and the three actors playing Frank at ages 7, 11, and 15 are uniformly superb. As photographed by Michael Seresin, the re-created lanes of Limerick, Ireland are almost painfully authentic in the cold, gray dampness that permeates nearly every scene. (This is surely one of the wettest films ever made.) As the McCourt parents--chronically depressed Angela and recklessly drunken Malachy--Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle successfully bypass the pitfalls of melodrama in a film that could have wallowed in bathos. And while Parker's anecdotal approach falls short in conveying the fullness of McCourt's experience (the director fared better with the Irish rockers of The Commitments), Angela's Ashes captures a specific time and place with vivid force, remaining loyal to the spirit of Frank McCourt's beloved tale of survival. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

It's not a dud, exactly-it has some flavor and an impressively dank, rain-soaked pallor-but this Alan Parker adaptation of Frank McCourt's memoir doesn't dramatize the material with much force. Parker keeps moving ahead through McCourt's boyhood in Limerick (he wants to get his hero to America); he doesn't develop anything in depth, so the stories of poverty and desperate resourcefulness have a thin, almost generic feeling of Irish bitterness. The three young actors (Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, and Michael Legge) who play Frank at different phases of his life all have wonderful faces, but Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle, as McCourt's suffering mom and ne'er-do-well father, are trapped by static roles. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful child actors...., June 29, 2000

By 

Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Angela's Ashes (DVD)

Well, I have to disagree with those who don't like this film. I read the book and I saw the film and the film is actually easier to take in some ways than the book. Both are pretty grim, there's no getting around that. Frank McCourt's childhood was a difficult affair.

The film and the book are works of art. The job of the artist is to shake us up, to make us see what we did not see before. The Ireland that Frank McCourt experienced was poor, dirty, downtrodden and very Catholic. Although I am not Irish, I grew up Catholic, and his depiction of the RC clergy was right-on. I can remember at the age of eight having a nun scream so hard she grew red in the face. I was terrified.

Well, read "Irish Immigrants and Exiles" if you think Mr. McCourt is exaggerating.

The film faithfully follows the book and I thought the film was more "hopeful" than the book. The child actors who play Frank at three different ages are wonderful. Mr. Mccourt said that he thought the film was a wonderful film that exactly captured his family. Guess we have to trust his judgement.

Whether you want to be subjected to this misery is another matter. The story reminds me of the films Carlo Ponti made about Italy after the War. Dirty, hungry children and pregnant 15-year olds. There are plenty of places still like that in the world, if only we can bring ourselves to look at them.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great movie, February 8, 2006

By 

cooperandre (Fullerton, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Angela's Ashes (DVD)

I enjoyed the movie, and of course movies sometimes are a bit of a let down from the book, but for those who rather just see the movie it does a fine job of telling the story. I read the book before seeing the movie and I thought they did a pretty good job, I do agree that there were some parts missing in the movie that was in the book. Emily Watson did a great job in this movie as well as each actor that played Frank McCourt. So regardless if you read the book or not I think you will enjoy this movie. And as for those, who think this movie is too Hollywood, well if that was the case then Frank's mom would have been played by Julia Roberts, his dad Tom Cruise, his aunt Britney Spears, and Frank would have been played by Will Smith, not to mention all the special affects they would have added to the movie. So I think it's a pretty good movie and recommend it.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Affecting look at the human face of poverty, July 22, 2000

By 

"flickjunkie" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Angela's Ashes (DVD)

The trouble with making a movie out of a Pulitzer Prize winning book is that no matter how good and true to the book it is, it will usually be a disappointment. This has a lot to do with the difference between reading a story and seeing one. When one reads a book, it is usually done over time, perhaps a week or two. The words stir the imagination and the scenes described become images, usually more illusory than real. There is plenty of time for this process to work. A film, in contrast, is viewed over a period of about two hours, where the viewer is perceiving rather than imagining. The portrayals are well defined and no matter how creative the director, it is very difficult to create scenes that equal those of readers who have previously conjured fantastic images in their heads.

I believe this is the reason this film was such a disappointment to so many viewers who had read the book. Thankfully, I saw the film first, so I had no preconceived notions. With that fresh perspective, I must say that it was outstanding.

It the story is taken from the memoirs of Frank McCourt, who recounted his childhood in Ireland in the 1930's and 1940's. It is a poignant and compelling story of a poor family struggling to survive. The images are powerful depictions of the indignity of indigence in a world where hunger and disease were common and people went almost as frequently to the cemetery as to the market.

Alan Parker brings us a starkly realistic view of McCourt's Ireland. He scoured Ireland to find a ghetto that brought forth the images described in the book, but after an exhaustive search, he decided to build the lane from scratch using McCourt's photographs. Upon visiting the set, McCourt said it was chillingly accurate and he couldn't believe he wasn't back home. Parker desaturated the color to give the film a very stark look, consistent with the squalor he was trying to portray. Paradoxically, the loss of color intensity intensified the power of the images. Though I'm not a big fan of this technique (I like rich and vibrant color), in this case it was the perfect choice.

The film suffers a bit from excessive length, undoubtedly because there was so much to cover. However, when Parker bombards the viewer with disturbingly hopeless imagery for well over two hours, it becomes tedious. This is another advantage of reading a book. You can more easily put it down and come back to it. Parker sometimes overdoes certain ideas that he could have condensed. We could have done without half a dozen vomiting scenes and all the chamber pot activity. One or two such scenes would have gotten the message across.

The cast was consistently excellent. Parker saw over 15,000 child actors before casting the three boys who played Frank at various ages. All three were wonderful, but my favorite was Michael Legge, the oldest Frank. He was the most hopeful person in the film, giving him character and determination, without losing his idealistic innocence.

Emily Watson is a great dramatic actress and rose to the occasion to endow Angela with superhuman strength, courage and persistence in the face of crushing hardship and sorrow. Robert Carlyle was also terrific as Frank's father. He made the character a lovable man with fatal flaws. Despite his heinously irresponsible behavior squandering money on drink as his family starved, his charming nature and effusive affection for the children evoked as much love from us as disgust.

This is a brilliant production. Though many who read the book were disappointed, I must point out that Frank McCourt, who wrote the book, was unabashed in praising it for its realism in capturing his impressions and feelings of the times. I rated it a 9/10. Other than a bit of overkill, this is superb filmmaking, giving us an affecting look at the human face of poverty.