I saw Rebecca Miller's "Angela" advertised many years ago but never saw it until now. Knowing that "Angela" is directed by Arthur Miller's daughter makes it sound good, and indeed it starts out very interesting, focusing on two sisters living in a miserable existence. But then about halfway through, the whole thing comes across more as a B movie, and not just because of the scenes in which the microphone appears. As the movie progresses, the plot gets thinner and thinner, and the girls have almost nothing to do. I understand that Miller (now married to Daniel Day-Lewis) has directed some other movies, so I'll keep an open mind about them. This one is just not worth your time.

Beautifully conceived and executed, this movie touches on something rarely seen—the testing and rituals imagined by a child to address the destruction of the world she knows. Angela (Miranda Stuart Rhyne) senses the presence of sin and angels in the house where her mother Mae (Anna Levine) is falling deeper and deeper into madness as their father (John Ventimiglia) watches helplessly. She and her little sister Ellie wander through the neighbourhood, meet a lot of strange people, and try to find a way to clean their souls of sin, ultimately with tragic results. They summon the Virgin Mary, but the one who hovers outside the window is probably not genuine or safe. The moments when their mother cycles back to something approximating normal make the girls happy again, but these moments do not last and the happy face becomes drawn and stricken. The sleepwalker next door, always checking her mailbox at night, is not an angel and cannot tell Angela the way to heaven. Angela is drawn to pity Lucifer, who lets her see him pale and writhing in the cellar, pleading softly, the stumps of his wings still bleeding. The river where simpler people are baptized cannot help her as she tries to expiate for sins that she does not understand and that she has never committed. The young actor who plays Angela is riveting, her sister open and appealing, the mother a powerful example of the dissolution of personality, the father gentle but strained far beyond his limits. The key concept--that children faced with unbearable facts, can internalize them and try to bear a family's burdens, and that the intelligent, sensitive, and imaginative child is more likely to enter into this struggle completely--is brilliantly conveyed.

This is an amazing if bizarre film. The acting of the two little girls is superb and far surpasses those of child actors in big budget studio films. I've read some disturbing posts accusing this film of child exploitation, particularly in the use of nudity. The nudity in this film is as innocent as a baby on a bearskin rug, but too many narrow-minded morons with internet access confuse this with pornography.The use of nudity in this film is a bit artsy, but very natural and represents the only beauty in these girls lives. Swimming nude with their mother the only time in their lives they've experienced joy. But the religious views of Angela makes her see herself as sinful, and her sister as unclean. This film could have been improved by more nudity to show how this budding adolescent views her own body. She already has a negative view of sexuality. But it's an issue no American filmmaker would dare explore, and I don't blame them.This is where the film becomes a near-satire of the dangers of blind faith in fear-based religions. This view of sin and uncleanliness leads Angela down a dangerous path but in her innocence, she doesn't view her actions as having negative consequences on her sister. Without giving any spoilers, Ellie experiences true freedom at the end only by experiencing, in the director's words, "an intense emotional experience."The only negative comment I have is I already know ahead of time how society views films of this nature. I'm surprised to see that few religious nuts who have seen this film never recognized it as a criticism of their faith. No one seems to be able to get over the sight of a naked baby to be able to do that.tlyoung88

ANGELA whisks the viewer away into the nightmare of a young girl threatened with the loss of her very world through the crumbling psychology of her mother. Rebecca Miller's film brings thoroughly to bloom the essence of a dangerous imagination which plays out like a Greek tragedy in the lives of Angela and her little sister on a quest to save themselves from the devil. The devil himself white as chalk and winged appears to warn them that he soon will claim the family. A helpless father cannot bind together the broken bridges and fallen stars of his wife, a Marilyn Monroe-like singer who can only perpetuate the failures of her life, spreading them like termites to envelope any stability her family could muster. It seems then to ANGELA that she in her innocence must bear that burden and find by way of a stray horse a black cat who she believes give her messages to where she can find the holy grail of her family's salvation, and this to a desperate end.