Snow Angels

Like a body making shapes in freshly fallen snow, the film Snow Angels leaves a fleeting impression. Things don't last. Life, relationships, and innocence all melt away in this disjointed drama about small-town angst.

Two different, yet sort of connected stories are happening at once. One follows contemplative high school student Arthur (Michael Angarano) dealing with his parents' separation and a burgeoning romance with Lila (Olivia Thirlby), the offbeat new girl at school. The far more interesting story involves Annie (Kate Beckinsale), Arthur's former babysitter, whose strained relationship with her unstable ex-husband Glenn (Sam Rockwell) is about to reach its breaking point. Glenn's a born-again Christian with a history of suicide attempts and alcohol abuse. He's frayed and flawed but he's trying; trying to get it together for the Annie and the 4-year-old daughter they share together.

While Annie carries on an affair with her best friend's husband, Glenn sinks lower into depression. Things finally come to a head when their daughter goes missing"”all leading to one startling conclusion.

The problem with Snow Angels is that it feels like two separate films, instead of a single interconnected one. Even the tone of the movie changes from beginning to end. What starts off as a humorous look at the lives of these damaged people ends on an extremely bleak and dark note. It all feels unexpected.

Arthur's entire storyline could have been done away with completely and I wouldn't have minded. The Arthur and Lila romance was a bore, and I did not care about Arthur's relationship with his parents, his dad's infidelity, or his mother's heartbreak. Not when the combustible Annie and Glenn are about to self-destruct. None of the rest seemed relevant when tragedy strikes this doomed couple.

While at times overwrought and overcrowded with soap opera dramatics, Snow Angels does yield fantastic work from Rockwell and a surprising performance from Beckinsale. Rockwell is able to find the humor in some of Glenn's pathetic situations while Beckinsale shows she has something more gritty hiding behind that pretty face. The final scene between the two of them is both intense and disturbing. Their ill-fated conclusion plays out like something you'd hear on the news the next day and cringe over.

Writer and director David Gordon Green (who adapted Snow Angels from Stewart O'Nan's novel) uses the stark winter scenery to haunting effect, but even that doesn't quite make Snow Angels into the powerful movie it thinks it is.

Movie Grade: C+

Synopsis:

Snow Angels, adapted from the novel of the same title by Stewart O’Nan, is two stories of love and loss converging. One is of a recently separated couple attempting to pick up the threads of a future when faced with tragedy. The second is about an awkward young man, currently in the throes of discovering his first romance, forced to deal with the separation and subsequent strife

of his parents’ relationship.