Summary
A tender exploration mental illness and grief…this is not. A talented creative team and a top-notch cast are completely squandered in this visually flat thriller.
There’s a lot of promise behind ANGEL OF MINE. Director Kim Farrant’s previous film Strangerland was a gripping film from start to finish. Screenwriter Luke Davies won awards across the board for Lion. Yet in this awkward thriller, the sum of those parts doesn’t add up to anything heavenly.
Following the death of their daughter, Lizzie (Noomi Rapace) and Mike (Luke Evans) are divorced. Lizzie simply isn’t coping with life, and Mike sues for custody of their other child. Yet a chance encounter with a little girl causes Lizzie to lose grip on reality, believing it is really her daughter returned. As she begins to ingratiate herself into the lives of the girl’s parents (Yvonne Strahovski and Richard Roxburgh), their relationship takes a darker turn.
Davies’ screenplay, co-written with David Regal, is like a cross between The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and a Law & Order episode for the most part. It starts innocuously enough, with Lizzie stalking a toddler and freaking out in public. By the time she is wandering off with someone else’s child and comically popping up from behind bushes – or “officially in restraining order territory” as the films puts it – the script becomes the stuff of high fantasy rather than anything based in reality.
Rapace and Strahovski give this their all, although the material is not the best either have had to work with. Rapace, for example, has some interesting character turns, including a sex scene showing intimacy issues and a brief visit to a psychologist. Yet these threads are left dangling, undermining any chance that this film had of dealing with grief and mental health issues in any meaningful way. Evans and Roxburgh are given virtually nothing to do, with their roles easily interchangeable and fillable by any actor with a pulse.
Backed by a heavy-handed soundtrack from Gabe Noel, what is most surprising about ANGEL OF MINE is just how plainly shot the film looks. When compared with the rich work of P.J. Dillon on Strangerland, here Farrant and cinematographer Andrew Commis take a point-and-shoot approach that appears to go out of its way to divorce this thriller from any style.
As the film goes for the inevitable climactic ending, complete with a girl-fight face-off, the twists and turns that lead to the conclusion will only shock if you have been invested in this vanilla thriller. The bizarre denouement feels completely incongruous with the rest of the film, making us wonder if they were intentionally going for being a camp classic.
2018 | Australia | DIRECTOR: Kim Farrant | WRITERS: Luke Davies, David Regal | CAST: Noomi Rapace, Luke Evans, Yvonne Strahovski, Richard Roxburgh | DISTRIBUTOR: R&R Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 97 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 5 September 2019 (AUS), 1-18 August 2019 (MIFF)
