ANGEL

Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that one) set in early twentieth century England, Angel tells the story of Angel Deverell: a young working class girl from an unremarkable town in the midlands, but she isn't willing to settle for that life. Full of self-belief, precociousness and bile for people of lower social standing she remains firm in the belief that she is better than the others and will one day become a world renowned novelist and shuns her studies to spend all of her time writing fanciful stories. Unsurprisingly, for her at least, a publisher becomes interested and she is taken on a rollercoaster ride through Edwardian society. The original novel is a fierce critique of many Victorian writers of this sort and Angel Deverell is made more sympathetic in the movie, though the some of the core qualities remain. The film is shot as a flamboyant melodrama, bursting with colour and vibrancy, with occasional scenes of passion, anger and horror punctuating the narrative like fireworks and this is carried most impressively by Romola Garai who takes the lead role. Brimming with energy, not to mention pomposity, she sets the screen alight with her portrayal of Deverell and, I suspect, salvages some of the passion that might have been lost by removing its viciously critical core. And it would be unfair to claim that none of the bite of the original tale remains. A large chunk of the story focusses on drawing out a grand commentary on the nature of artistic integrity, what it means to be an artistic, and playing on the potential gains and honours of paining yourself to be true to your artistic beliefs - a noble series of ideas to try and embed in an exaggerated melodrama! The key question then becomes: does it work? Well it kind of does. The sumptuous visuals make it eminently watchable, and Romola Garai's exaggerated performance acts as the knowing wink that constantly reminds us that what we are watching is largely tongue in cheek. If this wasn't enough, there are some deliciously overdone costumes and a bombastic score to keep the gleeful parody trundling along. There are definitely some problems though, one of them being French director Francois Ozon's evident issues with the English language, there are several moments (you'll recognise them if you watch the movie) that just sound weird and clunky. Nonetheless, it as an interesting and great looking period adaptation.

Angel plays on limited release in the U.K. from August 29th.