Cheap Angela's Ashes (Video) (Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle) (Alan Parker) Price

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Customer Reviews of Angela's Ashes

I missed McCourt's narrative
Oh, well. Maybe next time. Being one of the legions of fans of the book, I also came to the film with high expectations, and most were statisfied, at least as far as cinematography and acting go. Emily Watson was very good, and the three boys playing the various stages of Frank were wonderful. I question the film's attempt to positively portray some of the characters, for example the grandmother who, by McCourt's account, was a mean-spirited old woman who treated the children quite badly. However, in a tale so oppressive, I guess there must be some redeeming traits, at least in Hollywood.

What I missed most of all was McCourt's rambling, Joycean narrative and light tone which makes the book such a joy. His accepting, wistful, voice permeates every aspect of the written story and, more than any of his personal triumphs, it is this calm, all-forgiving voice, looking back from many years later, which is the shining ray of hope in the end. I sorely missed this, and found myself overcome by the appropriately squalid scenery.

Another problem I have with the film is the uninspired score by John Williams. Is this man even going to try anymore? Some of Hollywood's younger composers surely could have provided a more interesting and evocative accompaniment. Williams' dull ideas, repeated ad nauseam, had no more place in this film than his quasi-klezmer tunes had in Schindler's List.

Overall, Angela's Ashes was a fine effort in film, made anemic by the absence of McCourt's narration. It was inevitable that a book so popular be snatched up by Hollywood, but I will not go out of my way to see it again. I'd rather let the written word carry me away...

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WHAT ASHES? SHOULD PERHAPS HAVE BEEN LEFT AS A BOOK
I have not read the eponymous book, and after watching this despondent drivel I probably won't. One can just hope that the book did a more honest job of potraying Angela's memoirs.

The film is set in Limerick, which, from the looks of it, is in the middle of an incredibly wet rainforest. Two brothers grow up with a mother who struggles and begs to keep her family alive and together. The predictably antisocial father squanders every bit of money he ever earns on truckloads of alcohol.

We are shown slices of life in the coming-of-age up process, and how Frank finally gets the money to leave Ireland and come to America. The boys were no cherubs, but they survived without getting into too much trouble, and became literary lions in America. That's pretty much it.

The acting is good, especially by the boy who plays the teenage version of Frank McCourt. The cinematography stretches and scampers to be oh-so-noir, and is thus overwrought with dark pigmented colors almost all of the time. Background music is run of the mill, one that you would typically expect from movies of this nature.

What boggles me though is the touchy-feely title of the book/movie: Angela (the mother) does not die. Or did I miss something? Where are the ashes?

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Does justice enough for me!
Overall, I think the film does justice to the book as justice as a film can do. Obviously, the film cannot convey the powerful emotion though to the viewer as well as the book does. The actors did a brilliant job, especially Emily Watson and teenage Frank McCourt, played by the attractive Michael leg. The film won my commpassion just as the book did. The sogginess of the settings perhaps slightly puts you off a visit to Ireland. Though it is also enriched with history, and the acrhitectual structures are simply amazing. The ending leaves you hanging, as when the film came to a conclusion I felt deeply unsatisfied. Someone tell Mr.Parker to get of his behind and make something of the sequel 'Tis!