Angels Crest
Director: Gaby Dellal – Cast: Thomas Dekker, Jeremy Piven, Mira Sorvino, Elizabeth McGovern, Kate Walsh, Lynn Collins, Joseph Morgan, Barbara Williams
UK, Canada – Thriller/Drama – 96 minutes
Snow and mountains make up the backdrop to the film Angels Crest, while the story consists of characters that must confront grief and sadness after a tragic event shakes up a small working-class town. Despite its attempts, the actions and subsequent emotions of the entire ensemble cast leave the audience feeling cold. Based on the book of the same name, Angels Crest, directed by Gaby Dellal, feels more like a shell of a movie compared to anything else. It contains all of the conventional tropes of a dramatic, independent film on the surface with none of the genuine, complex emotion that the film is trying so hard to have at its core.
The plot of Angels Crest begins with the introduction of Ethan (Thomas Dekker) and his three-year old son Nate. During a spontaneous morning drive through the mountains, Ethan decides to leave his son carefully stowed away in the back seat of his truck. He spots a deer a few feet away and decides to track where it is going. A few minutes later, he returns to his truck and realizes that Nate has disappeared from the back seat. A search-party consisting of many citizens from the town finally finds the boy later that night, dead and frozen in a patch of snow. Suspicions and accusations roll through the town following this event that deal with the true cause of Nate’s death. Relationships between members of the community are tested as they start to analyze Ethan’s ability as a parent and his ability to cope with the loss of his son.
An unfortunate symptom resulting from the adaptation of Angels Crest from novel to the big screen is an overwhelming cast of underdeveloped characters that make up the citizens of the town. Each character has their own small subplot that adds nothing of value to the overall plot or tone of the film. Kate Walsh and Lynn Collins together play an extremely stereotypical, folksy lesbian couple who run an inn. It is revealed that their son, who has just gotten his girlfriend pregnant, is homophobic and isn’t entirely comfortable with being around them. This tidbit of information is mentioned once and is then never referred to again. This isn’t some small, minor characteristic; this is their entire story arc within the plot. It can’t be connected to the main plot of the film and isn’t developed enough to have a point even in a thematic context.
This lack of relevance continues with practically every over minor character. Jeremy Piven plays an district attorney who is charging Ethan with the murder of his son. The audience comes to find out that Piven’s character has lost a child of his own, and it serves as his driving force behind wanting to find Ethan guilty of a criminal act. The context of what actually happened to the character is left unsaid, which makes a pure emotional connection to the character close to impossible. There is also a romantic subplot between Angie (Mira Sorvino) and Rusty (Joseph Morgan), both of whom are friends with Ethan. Their courtship is neither scandalous nor romantic, and seems to only serve as an homage to what was more likely an important part of the plot of the book.
The acting of the entire ensemble cast doesn’t do anything to rectify their underdeveloped characters and respective lines. In fact, many of the actors seem to have attended the “not-so-subtle” school for acting. Thomas Dekker, especially, seems to think that the only requirement for inserting genuine emotion into a piece of dialogue is to scream it as loud as possible. Instead of feeling sympathy or sorrow for Ethan because of the tragic situation that he finds himself in, a viewer of the film is left feeling just awkward. You aren’t watching a man who is feeling the guilt of being partly responsible for the death of his young son. You are watching a young actor shouting lines with the intention of conveying these exact emotions, but failing to do so.
The cinematography, however, does look beautiful. Scenes filmed with the snowy mountains look great, and the white blanket of snow covering the town is effective at creating a somber look and tone of the film in a visual sense. However, this visual aesthetic is not exactly unique. The combination of the falling snow, run-down buildings, and old pick-up trucks is a style that can be found in a variety of better films. Also, the pacing of the film is not quick enough for the mystery of what really happened to Nate to truly capture the attention of the audience. The film identifies itself as both a drama and a thriller, but not once is there anything remotely similar to an intense or thrilling moment. As a director, Dellal has not yet found her own unique visual style. The camera lingers far too long on characters that have finished shouting their lines, further increasing the awkward feeling in the minds of the audience. This awkwardness does not result from witnessing an emotional event within the film, it is the reaction of the audience as they realize they are watching a bad movie.
It is apparent that the film and the source material are trying to explore themes of grief, guilt, and the meaning of parenthood. Each underdeveloped subplot can relate back to the relationship between parent and child: Ethan’s relationship with his absentee father, Sydney’s relationship with her mother, the district attorneys lost relationship with his child, the lesbians relationship with their son, and of course, the effects of the initial event on how Ethan views his own relationship with his late son. This might sound like the foundation of a film that effectively explores how the severance of the emotional connection between parent and offspring affects both parties involved, but it results in a convoluted mess of a film that can’t decide which characters to bring to the forefront of the plot.
The biggest disappointment within the film is the failure to grab at the heartstrings of its audience. In the real world, the events that play out would indeed be tragic. But in Angels Crest, the emotion seems so one-note. The audience never gets to see these characters in a range of differing emotions, which is another reason why all of the characters are not developed enough. The film is just one long drawn out moment of sadness, without any complex or at least genuine emotion that the audience can relate to. Angels Crest tries to be a character-driven movie, but its characters are largely underdeveloped archetypes present in other films. This combined with the contrived, and frankly, silly initial event of Ethan stupidly leaving his son in the car leaves the audience feeling emotionless and bored. In the end, Angels Crest feels more like a visual outline of the plot of a book, which is where the true emotion and feeling of the story can actually be found.
