Angela's Ashes (film)
From AwardAnnals
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| Director(s) | Alan Parker |
|---|---|
| Distributor | Paramount |
| 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… | |
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
Barnes and Noble
Adapted from Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Angela’s Ashes vividly captures the author’s miserable childhood in Ireland during the 1930s, thanks to the sure-handed direction of Alan Parker (The Commitments). The film is as unsparing in its vision of poverty and despair as the book. After failing to secure work in the Depression-era United States, Malachy McCourt (Robert Carlyle) returns to his homeland with wife Angela (Emily Watson) and their five surviving children. Settling in the town of Limerick and living in squalor, Malachy and his brood endure hardships that eventually drive away the hard-drinking father and force eldest son Frank to shoulder intolerable burdens. Frank, depicted at various ages, is well played by three gifted young actors (Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, and especially Michael Legge), but the film’s most skillful performance is Watson’s. She is unforgettable as the physically frail but spiritually indomitable matriarch at the center of the story. Welcome flashes of humor and tenderness save Angela’s Ashes from sinking into a morass of despondency, but even at its most melancholy, this is a film to be cherished. Ed Hulse
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Angela's Ashes: Music From The Motion Picture
Given that John Williams has his pick of much of the $80-million, thrill-packed boilerplate that comes clanging out of Hollywood every summer and fall, it’s especially noteworthy (and often gratifying) when he doesn’t exercise his option. In scoring Alan Parker’s adaptation of Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer-winning memoirs of his dire Irish upbringing in the 1930s and ‘40s, Williams has produced a graceful, autumnal work of compelling, though decidedly delicate, emotional power. Using spare piano and solo woodwind melodies filled with longing eloquence, Williams…
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
- 1997 Pulitzer–Biography winner
- 1996 LATimes–Biography winner
- 1996 NBCC–Biography winner
- Score: 30.47
“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”
So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank’s mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank’s father,…
