CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Paul J. Nemecek I read Frank McCourt's account of his childhood in Ireland several years ago. The book Angela's Ashes has been on the bestseller list for quite some time now, and I have been anxiously awaiting the film adaptation. Director Alan Parker has given us a film that faithfully reconstructs the images recounted in McCourt's masterpieces. While the film is faithful and technically quite good, somewhere in the process the filmmakers lost McCourt's voice and his distinctly Irish humor along the way.For those who have not read the book, Angela's Ashes is about Frank McCourt's coming of age in America and in Ireland. When the book opens, the McCourt family is living in America, having come to the land of opportunity to escape the wretched poverty of rural Ireland. Unfortunately, they have arrived in the land of opportunity in the midst of the great depression and opportunities are scarce. After a newborn dies, the family decides to head back to Ireland, but fortunes her are hardly better, and the McCourt patriarch spends what little money they can get drowning his sorrows. The father (capably portrayed by Robert Carlyle of The Full Monty) reminds me a bit of the tippler in The Little Prince. When the little prince asks the tippler why he drinks, the tippler replies, "to forget". Not satisfied with this answer, the little prince persists in his inquiry, "to forget what?" The tippler replies, "to forget that I drink."Angela is Frank McCourt's mother, the woman who loses three children to "the consumption", tries to put up with her alcoholic husband, and is permanently despondent over the debilitating poverty of her family. Emily Watson, the gifted actress who has been nominated for Oscars for performances in Hillary and Jackie and Breaking the Waves, plays Angela.While I miss some of authenticity and poetry of McCourt's writing, this is still a film worth seeing. If you have read the book, you may be mildly disappointed in the film adaptation. If you have not had the privilege of reading the book, you should take the opportunity to see the film. This is one of those great stories about the resilient nature of the human spirit, triumph out of tragedy, hope in the midst of suffering. John William's score has been nominated for an Oscar, and the music does its job by creating synergistic movement with the visuals. I wish the film flowed a bit better in terms of pacing, and I wish it had more of McCourt's poetic imagery. In the final analysis, the important question is, is my life enriched by having seen it? 'Tis.

DKosty123 This film is truly the autobiographic story of author Frank McCourt and the family of Limerick, Ireland. It does not pull any punches about growing up poor in a family that wants for everything and gets a lot of misery. The portraits of the family and the environment are stark and real.Told through the eyes of Frankie McCourt, there are many events that come through in vivid reality. The backbone of a fine novel shows up here. Everything from innocence of child hood to coming of age are told with a labor of misery, love and coming of age all taken into account. There is so much that it can overwhelm the viewer, yet it does seem to all come together in a very human way.You do not have to read the book to know this all has a gong of human beings and the fragile human condition all written into a long tale. The observations of young Frankie growing up throughout and of the adults in his life are something special.Frankie loves his father, though dad does only very basic human things to earn that love. He loves his mother, though he resents what she has to do to keep the family whole because of dad. He loses 2 brothers at young ages, and the movie gives a loving portrait of both. This story goes through a magnificent circle of life with much more reality than any Disney cartoon could ever portray. Magnificent music punctuates a cold wet miserable family life which only love and determination could get one to live through.

grantss Engaging bitter-sweet movie.Based on Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name, the movie details the childhood years of Frank McCourt in Ireland. Hardly the childhood anyone would wish for: abject poverty, three siblings die, father is unemployed and an alcoholic.Shows the conditions some people were, and are, forced to live in. Is pretty much a roller-coaster of misery. Every positive event is followed by a negative one. Very sad.Yet, between these harrowing episodes there's levity and some quite funny moments. If there wasn't, it would probably be too depressing to handle.Most importantly, you empathise with the characters and share in their ups and downs, as all good dramas should cause you to do.On the negative side, the ending feels a bit rushed and incomplete. But then again, the ultimate ending would show the rest of McCourt's life and how it turned out. That would be whole new movie... It certainly was a whole new book, as McCourt wrote a sequel to Angela's Ashes, "'Tis: A Memoir". This has, as yet, not been made into a movie.

tieman64 Directed by Alan Parker, and based on a memoir by Frank McCourt, "Angela's Ashes" stars Robert Carlyle as the father of a family struggling to live in 1930s Ireland. A coming-of-age tale, the film primarily focuses on young Frank, one of the family's gloomy sons.In the mould of Bill Douglas, whose films offered grim portraits of early 20th century Scotland, Parker conveys the bleak, gruelling conditions of 1930s Ireland. This is a world in which human beings are ceaselessly assaulted by death, disease, starvation, poverty, poor living conditions and miserable weather. Catholicism, and the hopeful embraces of churches and pulpits, pretends to offer some respite. "Angela's Ashes'" better elements are undone by a generic coming-of-age plot. Though funny, moving and even wise in places, the film's overall structure too often forces Parker's material down familiar avenues. The film stars child actor Joe Breed, his furrowed face at times more powerful, more devastating, than the film its in. Emily Watson co-stars as the family's privately suffering mother.7.9/10 – See "Wendy and Lucy", "Stroszek", "My Childhood", "Frozen River" and "Bread and Roses".