Conference bookie::movies

499.0. "Angie" by 38512::MASON (The law of KARMA hasn't been repealed) Mon Mar 21 1994 15:32

         
         If I had spent $6.75 or $7.00 to see Angie, I would be
         really annoyed.  But, I attended a matinee, so it was just
         $4.50 and the latter part of a lazy Sunday afternoon that was
         wasted to see what amounts to a (IMHO) "made-for-TV-movie" on
         the big screen.  Gena Davis is an actresses I usually enjoy,
         but even she can't save this cliche-ridden snore of a movie.

         This movie will be probably be touted as the "women's movie
         of the year" -- probably because there are so few movies made
         where the main character is a woman, and there is a very nice
         friendship between the Gena Davis character and her best
         friend (which is never fully explored), and the film is
         directed by a woman. But it's not enough -- I need a good
         story, and this one, based on a book called "Angie, I Says,"
         just doesn't make it.
                                        
         Spoilers follow...

         

         Plot Summary:

         Angie is a nice working class Italian-American girl from
         Bensonherst, Brooklyn.  She's involved with a plumber who
         makes TV commercials to sell his services (Call 910-Plummer
         -- "Plumber" was someone else's phone number), and she's
         pregnant.  They decide to marry.  She has doubts about their
         life together -- that it will be ordinary, and that's
         something she can't bear. She meets another man, has more
         doubts about her life with the plumber, starts an affair
         with the other man, and breaks off the engagement with the
         plumber, who gets mad, kicks some trash to show how macho he
         is, and quickly finds another girlfriend.
                                                              
         The new guy in her life is a wacky artist -- so she thinks --
         who turns out to really be a high powered lawyer.  They meet
         on her first journey into culture -- a trip to the
         Metropolitan Museum -- and they are both ejected for eating
         crackers  -- she because she is having morning sickness, and
         Noel (the new guy), because he is supporting her right to eat
         crackers.  The banter between them is cute, and they part as
         he gives her his number.  They meet, have dinner, and we see
         them the "morning after." She reveals to him sometime later
         that she's pregnant, he says it doesn't matter, and from that
         time on, he takes her to the ballet, and other cultural
         events, and arrives at her office Xmas party in time to see
         her go into labor.  He leaves her at the hospital, without a
         word of explanation.    
                  
         Angie's stepmother is an Irish American woman with ambitions
         to cook like an Italian (her inability to do so is the brunt
         of some visual jokes). They don't get along, much to the
         dismay of her father. But, despite these problems, her father
         and his second wife support Angie in her decision to have the
         baby without being married, even though they don't understand
         it.  There are some family secrets lurking beneath the
         surface, all of which come out at the appropriate times --
         most of which are not that much of a surprise.  
                  
         Angie also has her doubts about motherhood.  Her real mother
         left her mysteriously, and she has only a single photograph
         of her, and a too clear memory of a three year old of some
         advice her mother gave her that some stories are meant to be
         lived (so some such thing). When her baby is born with a
         deformed arm, and some complications of heart and lung AND
         won't nurse, Angie can't take it. She can't even give her son
         a name.  She leaves home and confronts her lover -- only to
         find out he's married, or, as he says, "separated, well, sort
         of..." So she does what any confused person from Brooklyn
         would do -- she gets on a Greyhound heading to Texas, where
         she believes she will find her mother.  

         Her best friend follows her, and together they land in some
         godforsaken bar in Texas -- the last know address of her aunt
         and mother.  The bartender denies she knows the aunt's
         whereabouts.  Angie and her best friend ,who have been through
         everything together -- from Barbie dolls to abusive husbands
         -- quarrel, and her friend leaves.  But Angie stays, knowing
         that the bartender is really her aunt. She confronts the
         woman after the bar closes, and is introduced to her mother
         -- a schizophrenic who cannot communicate with her.  She
         shows her mother the only photo she has of the two of them.
         And the mother sets it on fire with a cigarette, burning just
         the half of the photo with the mother's image. (Note the
         symbolism).
                                                        
         Through this visit and this symbolic act, all is revealed. 
         Angie suddenly understands why her mother left her, why her
         father has suffered in silence, and why she must return to
         her child, who, she finds out when she calls home, has been
         taken to the hospital with pneumonia.  Will he live? Angie
         rushes home on a plane, and finds her baby in intensive care. 
         She talks to him, holds his little hand through the glass,
         and as morning breaks, he breathes on his own, she makes up
         with her father, and succeeds in nursing her son -- now named
         Sean, in honor of her stepmother's only child who died within
         an hour of being born. Angie is redeemed through the rebirth
         of her child -- all will work out.
                          
         This movie is filled with stereotyped Italian American
         working class people, and a host of cardboard characters who
         never get developed enough for the viewer to care about them. 
         There were occasional laughs, and I was impressed with the
         accents (coming from Brooklyn myself), and it was nice to see
         some familiar scenes of Brooklyn and NYC. I really liked the
         first 10 minutes of this film, and wanted to like the rest,
         so I sat through it hoping it would get better -- it never
         did.
                                         
        4 thumbs down (I saw it with a friend, and she didn't like it
         either).

    re .1, well, I *completely* disagree with your opinion of this movie. 
    I saw it Saturday night, and I enjoyed it a lot and, although I would
    consider it a "women's movie," the guy I saw it with liked it, too.
    
    I thought the major characters seemed realistic, not cardboard at all,
    as you thought.  I found the plot interesting and thought parts of the
    movie were quite funny.  In general, it held my attention, the acting
    was good, and, all in all, I thought it was charming.  I always enjoy
    Geena Davis and I was dissapointed with her here either.  She does a
    good job with her character and makes her, imo, both likeable and
    believable as a real person.
    
    I read the spoiler in .0, where you retell the story in detail, and,
    personally, I think it's interesting and relevant.  I wouldn't say that
    this is a wonderful movie, and I don't think it will be on my top ten
    list for 1994, however I did find it very enjoyable, and thought the
    $7.00 was well worth the entertainment received.
    
    *** out of *****
    
    Lorna
    

    I'd say this is a halfway decent movie.  Up until the time Angie takes
    off, even through most of her visit, it's pretty involving.  But then
    we take a sharp turn into ham-handed melodrama.  What a letdown.
                                          
    See it as a matinee or wait for video.