A film review by Mark O'Hara Copyright © 2000 Mark O'Hara

Although I have not yet read Frank McCourt's memoir ANGELA'S ASHES, many of my friends have recommended it to me. After seeing the film, I will bring a good deal of familiarity to the text. The only thing is, I'm not sure I want to revisit all the parts of the narrative I witnessed in the movie.

First, I need to say that I think the movie is too long. At 145 minutes, it sets up the story, belabors the point that the boy Francis McCourt and his family lived in abject poverty, and then hits us with a couple of plot twists that resonate with profundity. In the theater I remember thinking this must have been a difficult screenplay to write. I think now that if the filmmakers had employed alternate narrative devices - such as the extended flashbacks used in the recent SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS - the effects of the spans of grimness and relative flatness of plot might have been mitigated. But this is an opinion.

A brief summary of plot: At the age of five, little Francis McCourt lives in Brooklyn, New York with his Irish immigrant parents, Angela and Malachy. Francis has four siblings; the smallest, newborn Margaret Mary, dies after only a few days. The family is poor; the mother is sick and the father is a hapless alcoholic. Family members arrange passage back to Angela's native Limerick, a city on the middle west coast near the River Shannon. As their ship pulls away from New York Harbor, Francis comments in a voice-over narrative (done by an actor with a brogue) that he must be the only boy to watch Lady Liberty fade away, as most immigrants come away from Ireland, not toward it!

Back in Limerick, the twin boys, Eugene and Oliver, pass away, leaving only Francis and little Malachy. Their mother (Emily Watson) takes each death with motherly devastation. But she also gives birth to two other boys, Michael and Alfie. Meanwhile, the elder Malachy (Robert Carlyle) spends every penny he can gather on strong drink. We follow the desperate exploits of the family through several years, and a progression of Franks - Joe Breen as the youngest, Ciaran Owens as "middle Frank," and Michael Legge as the eldest. During the time the father travels to England to find work, middle Frank quits school and helps out the coal man. It's a dramatic scene when he earns his first money for the family - proportionately more than his father contributes - but the happiness is dispelled when Frank suffers from the worst case of conjunctivitis the doctor has ever seen. (The makeup in this sequence is quite striking, the boy's eyes bright red with inflammation.) Ceasing his deliveries, Frank continues in his role of big brother, assisting dutifully with his siblings. But then the typhoid hits him hard. It's ironic that Frank is actually glad, in a way, to be hospitalized; he has his own lavatory and almost the entire ward to himself. Here he immerses himself in Shakespeare, reciting lines any boy would like as he has his private bath. It's heart-breaking to see the dysfunctional father on his visit to the hospital. Frank feels ambivalent, as he has always adored spending mornings with his father and the wondrous stories; but he hates the wayward drinking and endless cycle of lost jobs. In the hospital, however, he receives his first kiss from his father, and the boy is so affected that he forgives his father yet again.

The older Frank continues to be very bright in school, but is forced to get a job, this time for the post office, delivering telegrams. Two very interesting developments include Frank's seduction by a consumptive girl named Theresa, and his writing letters for the greedy money-lender. As his home situation worsens, Frank plans on taking the advice of one of his teachers. This man declared that the bright boys of the Limerick slums should leave the country, if the country did not see fit to offer them opportunities for education beyond grade school. How Frank gets the money and willpower to depart makes for an engaging last chapter of the film.

Many factors have a part in making ANGELA'S ASHES a powerful and evocative film. This is the strongest type of naturalism: we see children dying, mothers begging, families scrounging for their very survival. The sets are amazing. Stone and brick buildings look as though they are already a hundred years old at the time of the action, the 1930's and '40's. Dreary gray streets and skies always ready with rain. A flooded first floor. Raw sewage in the gutters. And the social climate is even worse. It depends upon the personal history a viewer brings to the film, but it struck me that the film approaches cliché in its portrayal of the sheer amount of neglect and abuse heaped upon the boys in Frank's Catholic school. Clearly this film is an indictment of hypocrisy - of the teachers who whipped and the country that ignored. At least there are a couple of compassionate figures, one a priest who makes confession bearable for Frank in his early adulthood, the other the old teacher who praises and advises.

As the mother Angela, Emily Watson serves well. She looks adequately plain, and converts her British accent into the brogue with no noticeable effort. Especially moving are the ways she expresses her grief for her dead children, and the way she admonishes her "worthless" husband in a matter-of-fact voice.

Robert Carlyle looks a bit overwhelmed by the family around him, but perhaps this is because his character is an outcast in more than one way. Malachy is from the north of Ireland, and a Protestant, and the script continually shows the ignorance and insensitivity of the Limerick Catholics in Angela's family, as they condemn Malachy's "odd ways." Our distance toward this man constantly shifts, as he nurtures his boys one hour and then drinks away their dinners the next.

After nearly two hours of grimness, the story gains an admirable momentum. Director Alan Parker choreographs the closing scenes well, causing the universality of the situations to resound with power. As a whole, I would recommend the film because of its unsentimental portrayal of a bleak childhood - although I disagree with the narrator when he says that happy childhoods don't count for much. ANGELA'S ASHES is rated R for some language, but mostly for nudity and some sexuality. It would be fine for viewers 16 and over.

	Running Time: 145 Min | Rated: R | US Release: January 21st | More >>

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