cinemattraction

David Gordon Green specializes in finding the visual beauty and mystery latent within small-town, out-of-the-way America. His work, at least through his most recent effort Undertow, might best be described as a modern-day approximation of the arresting aesthetic of Terrence Malick, whose magic-hour photography lent stark contrast to the emotional turmoil brewing within the characters that occupied the Great Plains settings of Badlands and Days of Heaven. With Snow Angels, which Green both wrote and directed, he shifts away from that territory and into more conventional independent film terrain.

It comes as no great surprise that the movie was a success at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, as it doggedly hits most of the dramatic marks associated with the Sundance brand. It’s a domestic drama set within a snowy, non-descript small-town Pennsylvania setting. The film comes complete with a storyline involving a bickering separated couple (Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell) and their daughter caught in the crosshairs, loosely intercut with that of a second family undergoing a similarly tough time. When a tragedy catalyzes a stream of life changing events for all involved it becomes apparent that the picture’s going to go where lots of others have gone before.

The interplay between Beckinsale and Rockwell holds some interest, as they confront their collective past and struggle to find a way to move forward. Their efforts are complicated by Rockwell’s menacing alcoholism and his fervent, fundamentalist religious conviction. The downward spiral of the relationship, which transforms from feelings of cordial distrust on Beckinsale’s part and desperate attempts at reconciliation on Rockwell’s to mutual loathing, provides the most interesting crux of the film.

Unfortunately, Green weights it down with an additional storyline, in which high school student Arthur (Michael Angarano) flirts extensively with classmate Lila (Olivia Thirlby) while his parents (Griffin Dunne and Jeanetta Arnette) embark on a trial separation. There is a tenuous connection, as the course of events of the primary narrative help influence the decisions made by the second set of characters. Yet, in establishing that connection Green never takes the most crucial step.

There’s no sense of urgency in his telling of the added story. Nothing about it or the characterizations depicted prove especially interesting on a standalone basis. Angarano and Thirlby exhibit zero chemistry, with the former fatally underplaying his role and the latter imbuing every aspect of her performance with a dry hipster attitude. The screenplay never allows Dunne or Arnette much of a chance to explore their broken relationship. It grants them two meager scenes together and otherwise restricts the outpouring of their emotional baggage to various separate conversations with their son. Though occupying nearly half the running time, the storyline could only have been salvaged if the filmmaker had effectively used it to supplement the audience’s visceral response to the Beckinsale-Rockwell developments. Because the individuals involved do not seem to have been affected by the central situation any more than another broken family might have been their collective role within the overall framework becomes even more marginalized.

Green, working with favorite cinematographer Tim Orr, presents an evocatively bleak picture of the milieu. Save for an opening montage of scenes of town life, brought together with slow fades akin to the blinking of an eye, the filmmaker resists picturesque establishing shots or any other imagery of a meditative nature. The snow that covers the streets of the town seems more like a blanket that further suffocates the characters’ lives than a source of idyllic beauty. With the occasional jarring close-up, some handheld horror movie photography and tightly drawn glimpses of Rockwell’s contorted, miserable body, the movie does achieve a sense of domestic gloom and impending disaster. Unfortunately, the material never avoids the feel of a retread of familiar themes and popular independent movie conceits. By the time Snow Angels reaches its conclusion, given the flat bifurcated structure and the narrative’s heavy borrowing from other, better such dramas, one can’t help but conclude that this filmmaker’s particular talents are ill-suited to the genre.

© 2008 Robert Levin. All rights reserved.

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