Customer Reviews

Angela's Ashes

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Angela's Ashes is one of the best books I have ever read. I would have given this film atleast FOUR stars had I not read the book first. It is not a bad movie but I don't think the characters chosen to play a few crucial roles were too good. However, I must give credit to the fact that most situations described within the book are covered (with much haste). I didn't quite the get the feel of the film belonging to Ireland. The movie lacked much of the begging for basic food items and it also lacked the unbothered air of foolishness around Frank's father.

One major reason I give the film three stars and the book five is that I laughed out loud around 14 times while reading the book while around 2times while watching it.

To people who dislike reading books, this movie is for you.
For fans of the book and movie, Sorry - It didn't work for me.


Beyond the beyonds.

This is the first time I have commented on a film; I could not stay silent on this movie adaptation of an exceptional book. There are books that are meant to be movies, books that make surprisingly good movies, and books that should never ever go beyond the mind's eye of the reader. I saw Mr. McCourt on The Charlie Rose show and he stated he felt "they" had gotten it (the film) just right". So who am I to say otherwise?

Many, many people were disappointed with "Tis"; you will be exponentially more distraught by this movie. "Angela's Ashes" was literally one of the greatest publishing successes of the last hundred years. From a book that had an initial run of only 27,000 copies to a book that now has sold millions, it was an event by any measure.

When the movie opened I was puzzled why it was in so few theaters. Major movies open on 2,000 or 3,000, or even more screens. This film peaked at 916 theaters, I believe, and went down from there.

The young and younger and youngest of boys that played Frank were wonderful. The Director Alan Parker does Ireland as well as anyone, and Emily Watson was wonderful as well. But a visually depressing Ireland is not enough to bring the film off. Everyone involved knew they were making a film that would have an audience with expectations impossibly high; it would be a remarkable task to even come close to meeting them. Whoever made the final call on go or no go, should have said no.

The movie-going public said don't bother, theater owners did not place it on their very valuable holiday season screens.

The movie went no place commercially and that is all the commentary this film needs. Whatever vision of "Angela" resides in your mind, keep it, embrace it, and love it, for this film will only detract from what you already have.

All of the reviews that I've read of Angela's Ashes use words such as "depressing","somber" and "cold".I won't say that there are no merits in these descriptions but I do feel that at least as much notice should be given to the overall warmth of the movie. Despite a severely alcoholic father and an uneducated, mostly passive, and sick in spirit mother, and a seemingly bitter childhood,Frank McCourt manages to tell his story with tenderness and love for his people. The photography is excellent, managing to be beautiful even though the sets speak largly of decay. The dialog seems somewhat flattened and "americanized" compared to the book, but is still quite colorfull and wonderfully close to real. Robert Carlyle portrays McCourts father, a terminally unemployed alcoholic, with some tenderness for the character and I think captures the mirror image of McCourts' understandingly ambivalent memories of his father. At first Emily Watson's performance seemed to me to exibit a coldness that I saw as without motivation and distant, but as I began to truly understand the implications of the story I have come to think that an accurate rendition of McCourt's mother. Director Alan Parker handles this film in a straight forward manner.It is dark without being evil, it is touching without subjecting the audience to schmaltzy devices designed to influence emotion. As for redemption, the fact that McCourt could write his story with so much compassion, humor,and dignity, and have it accepted with so much goodwill around the world, seems like a victory to me.

Adapted from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt's bleak but amusing childhood memoirs; it's the tale of a cheeky, dirt-poor Irish lad who survives starvation, neglect and disease in '30s Limerick and immigrates to America.

Director Parker read Ashes before it was published and tried to buy the film rights. He was thrilled when asked to direct by producer Scott Rudin and even visited Limerick in '98, where he was struck by the hordes of Ashes devotees wandering the cobblestone streets, clutching well-worn copies of this book.

Ashes is not quite It's a Wonderful Life. This unflinchingly Dickensian look at Irish starvation-level poverty is rough going, even with the humorous voice-overs. But McCourt was so pleased by the faithful adaptation, says producer David Brown, "he was mesmerized and in tears" after a London screening.

As in most cases, the books movies are gleaned from reach greater depths and details, as authors have much more leeway. But, if Frank McCourt himself has Irish eyes a smilin' over this compelling adaptation--who am I to throw any Blarney stones?

A passionate and moving film as is the book.

After reading the reviews of several film critics when Angela's Ashes first came out in the theater I sadly decided to veto the movie completly. Then my husband purchased the DVD version of the movie for me as a wonderful treat and I absolutly fell in love with it. I don't care what other people say about Angela's Ashes, it is a rare look into the life of a brilliant man, who forced his way out of a poverty stricken Ireland and made a wonderful life for himself in America. I praise Frank McCourt for his courage and his passion for writing such a heartwarming story about his family and life in Ireland, and Alan Parker, for bringing the book to life in such a dynamic way.

I didnt read the book. But I thought the movie was really good. I guess all the people that are rating this movie as bad are just the typical ''Good-book, bad-movie'' folks, they are mostly everywhere and no matter how much beauty lies in one film, they will always stand in their monotonous position.

Frank McCourt's best-selling book is so good, and this movie is so true to it, that if you liked one, you'll like this because rarely has film been so close to a book. It's amazing, given what normally is the case.
Even though the film brought no surprises, I still thought it was fascinating because of the fantastic cinematography in here and the great job done by the actors. The muted colors in this film are beautiful and the lighting is superb. Then again, it's hard to go wrong with a nighttime streetlight-lit shot of cobblestone streets. The directing talents of Alan Parker were never more evident than here. He should do more movies.
The book, "Angela's Ashes," is a biography of McCourt and his extremely poor Irish family. All three boys who play McCourt at various times in his development are excellent here. The whole cast is excellent, for that matter, led by "Angela" (Emily Watson) and husband Malachy (Robert Caryle). Two sadder-looking faces, you never did see, and a more rainy, dreary town (Limerick) you never did see....so if you're looking a happy, uplifting story, pass this one by. However, if you want a film totally true to a great book, wonderfully photographed film and one acted well ....and with some unique humor to it, check this out.
I don't want to leave out the humor, the key ingredient in McCourt's otherwise- depressing days of growing up. Humor and dire poverty never went together so well as McCourt made it sound through his book and the filmmakers did through this movie.