A film that's a total mess, but in kind of a beautiful way.
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03/19/09
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Angel (2007)
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Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:20
Fresh:10
Rotten:10
Average Rating:5/10
Consensus: An odd mix of period melo-drama and social satire, with lavish sets and costumes, but Angel never takes flight.
Theatrical Release:2007
Starring: Romola Garai, Charlotte Rampling, Lucy Russell, Michael Fassbender
Director: Francois Ozon
Reviews for Angel
With a surface like a trashy novel and the undercurrents of a social satire, Ozon's British period drama is a slightly odd mix, feeling both arch and astute at the same time.
08/29/08
François Ozon is a Gallic Michael Winterbottom, if not in style then at least in his determination to do something different every time. As with Winterbottom, sometimes the result is great and sometimes not.
08/29/08
The French director François Ozon has taken Elizabeth Taylor's beadily satiric novel and transformed it into a droll and somewhat disturbing fantasia on the creative temperament.
08/29/08
How director Francois Ozon received a Golden Berlin Bear nomination for this shoddy movie, The Sneak will never know.
08/29/08
Top CriticA less than heavenly time is guaranteed for anyone who parts with their hard-earned to watch this formulaic period film.
08/29/08
Like Ozon’s 8 Women, the costumes are magnificent and Angel’s mansion is a shrine to the gods of bad taste. All that’s missing is a heroine worthy of Bette Davis in her heyday.
08/29/08
Choosing to clothe his whole movie in the outré frocks of a bad Technicolor romance, Ozon serves up camp fun, but that's it.
08/29/08
But this really is a failure - an honourable failure, arguably, but a failure, and a pretty complete one at that.
08/29/08
The film bristles with contemporary subtext and takes swipes at mediocre artists who believe their own press, and the culture of celebrity.
08/29/08
Despite an impressive cast and a well-known director, this misfiring costume drama is a haphazard mess that ends up more unintentionally funny than emotionally engaging.
08/29/08
Ozon’s film plays a difficult hand, never settling for all-out high kitsch or straight melodrama. One of the year’s most charming failures.
08/29/08
Garai is great, but Ozon is about as adept at directing Brits as Woody Allen. Mind you, the set and costumes are glorious: this is one expensive folly.
08/29/08
Angel is both a sly take on the melodramatic films of another era -- imagine sets and scenery out of The Magnificent Ambersons, for example -- and a spoof of contemporary celebrity, among other things.
06/27/08
Angel seems like a collection of misjudgements that required much effort, but with little satisfaction for that effort
11/17/07
[Ozon is] too tony now for the vaguely subversive pastiches with which he made his mark.
09/22/07
The parts are ultimately greater than the whole in the case of Good Luck Chuck, with the overall chemistry between Cook and Alba proving more memorable than any particular joke or sequence. You may mildly enjoy Chuck as you're watching it, but the film wi
09/21/07
Sporting an excellent performance by a very promising young actress, this is a film that forces you to pay attention. More than that, it's fulfills the first requirement of any good movie: it's one you'll want to watch again.
09/21/07
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04/14/07
Top CriticOzon instead crafts the anti-Disney story about a self-centered, unsophisticated brat who treats everyone badly just because she can crank out chick lit with a surprising lack of effort.
04/14/07
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