Angela's Ashes

Alan Parker directs and co-scripts this big screen adaptation of Frank McCourt's best-selling quasi-autobiographical book. Although born in Brooklyn in 1935, Frank and his family soon return to their home town of Limerick in Ireland following the death of his baby sister. Malachy Snr. (Robert Carlyle) has difficulty finding work, and his drinking results in wife Angela (Emily Watson) falling on charity to survive. Frank loses two more siblings when twin brothers Oliver and Eugene die young, but manages to carve a life for himself in Limerick, eventually finding work as a coalman's assistant. However, times continue to be hard, especially after Malachy Snr. departs the marital home for good.

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, grey 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