GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 3/22/05)

David Gordon Green's Snow Angels takes the talented young director to chillier climes than his first three features, George Washington, All the Real Girls and Undertow, all of which are set in the South from whence Green hails. Snow Angels takes place in a not-very-tony corner of Western Pennsylvania; the picture opens with a high-school band practicing for the next big game, and their frozen breath as they huff and puff gives the viewer a near-palpable sense of what a drag it is to be there. It's not all bad, though — the character we'll soon be introduced to as Arthur (Angarano) has a fan in the bleachers, it seems (she's Lila, played by Juno's Thirlby), and the band coach, played by the ever-unique Tom Noonan, is a goof. But when a gunshot echoes in the woods close by, things turn chillier… and the picture flashes back.

Based on a novel by Stewart O'Nan, Snow Angels applies Green's impressionistic style (which is, as ever, grounded in an acutely perceived reality) to a complex narrative of small-town love and loss and horror. For much of the picture, the narrative pings back and forth between one couple's love being torn asunder in the worst way and another couple's love just beginning. Without the former, Snow Angels might seem too sweet; without the latter, it would be unbearably bleak. The falling-apart couple is portrayed by Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale; Rockwell's character Glenn is a frightening wreck, a hapless figure who simply cannot stop himself from screwing up. Beckinsale's Annie is a former high school beauty queen who's just fed up, period, but keeps having to reiterate that fact. Arthur's a smart kid with serious parent problems who was once babysat by Annie; their peculiar flirtation at the film's beginning is mercifully halted by Thirlby's Lila, a beguiling, slightly eccentric beauty who emboldens Arthur in any number of ways. All of these actors are incredibly fine, and as a confirmed Beckinsale non-fan, I'm obliged to say that she really knocked me out here. (A fellow movie lover recently reminded me that she was better than good in Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco — back in the days before she was Kate Beckinsale — as well. Maybe she really ought to only do small films.)

The mounting tensions between Annie and Glenn — over his visitations with their young daughter, over his insistence that he can straighten up and get their marriage back on track — are exacerbated to a staggeringly awful level by an event that also rocks the community. Some viewers I respect — particularly the parents among them — think that it's at this point that Snow Angels goes too far. I don't agree, in part because I don't think art ought to heed any particular set of limits, and also because I think the film's handling of the turning point in question is scrupulous. It's something the viewer ought to decide, finally. This is very strong stuff that mops up the floor with the likes of Little Children, with which it shares a number of thematic points.

— Glenn Kenny