Snow Angels

In theaters Friday: Max Payne, The Secret Life of Bees, Sex Drive, W.

New on DVD: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, War, Inc.

Back in 2000 we thought we had a modern, Southern Gothic Terrence Malick on our hands. I barely knew who the enigmatic, rarely exhibited Days of Heaven legend was, but I’d seen his recent The Thin Red Line and could recognize the similarities. Recent college grad David Gordon Green had just released George Washington, a broken, meandering parable spotlighting a clutch of young black kids who spend a hot Carolina summer dealing with a terrible tragedy that befalls one of their own. The performances Green captured from these unknowns and non-actors were as real and devastating as the film was evocative and mysterious. Every shot, it seemed, looked fantastic. Green followed George Washington with All The Real Girls, one of my personal favorite relationship dramas of all time, cementing his heartfelt legend among indie cineastes, myself included. Not wanting to repeat himself, Green took a couple welcome left turns with 2004’s thriller Undertow and this summer’s studio, ahem, hit, Pineapple Express. But between these two films, Green directed another drama, an adaptation of Stewart O’Nan’s novel Snow Angels. Despite solid festival response, the film was a box office dud—whenever and wherever it was actually screened—so its first wide release was this month on DVD.

Now, Snow Angels harkens back to the tone of Green’s first two pictures, but with a very different setting. It’s obvious by the title we’re not in the South anymore, and Green makes good use of a sleepy Nova Scotia town in the winter. Red-coated marching bands and snow tires, carpet factories and quaint, dated living rooms are the roux of this movie. And unlike the green and brown shades of his early films, the stark white and blackness of Nova Scotia seems to slip into the film’s themes as well. That is, bold scenes of extreme right and wrong replace all ambiguity. The film dips in and out of four separate relationships, all connected by marriage, blood or babysitting.

The crux of the film is the disintegrated marriage of Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell. The estranged couple has a young daughter, and it’s evident from the start that Rockwell’s alcoholism and wildly unstable nature have caused a serious, irreparable rift. Rockwell here is pretty magnetic as he flails and winces in his flawed attempts to pick up the pieces of his life and prove himself again to Beckinsale. His effort is admirable in theory, but he lacks the capacity to be a good husband and father, and Rockwell lets all these ugly, confused cracks show. Beckinsale, who’s got to be the prettiest thing this little town has ever seen, is conducting a motel room affair with her co-worker’s husband. His relationship with her and his wife, played as a saint with her back against the wall by Amy Sedaris, is the second piece to the puzzle. I mentioned baby sitting earlier because the third relationship, and really the heart of the film, is the first love of the teenage boy Beckinsale used to care for as a youth. Played by Michael Angarano, this likeable kid works with Beckinsale and Sedaris at an Asian restaurant and somehow his shy, clueless but earnest nature wins over Olivia Thirlby’s budding photographer. From their first kiss to the first threatening jolt to their relationship, the dialogue and playful editing of this thread most closely resembles George Washington and All the Real Girls, and is the sweet to the rest of the film’s bitter.

The final relationship explored is that of Angarano’s estranged parents. I thought this was one plot too many in an already compelling story, and one less interesting and urgent than the others. Even though it featured prominently in O’Nan’s book, I would have dropped it here in favor of spending more time with Sedaris–who fades away in the third act–and Aranga whose character has that big, chummy Charlie Brown thing going on that makes you want to shout at the screen for him to overcome it all.

Snow Angels has its faults. It’s 10 minutes too long and some of the darker twists to the story could come as a surprise–even though we hear gunshots in the first scene–but it is worth a look for its strong performances, unconventional narrative structure and its gorgeous snowfall cinematography. No matter what twists and turns his career takes, Green, it would appear, is here to stay.