Angie

Directed by Martha Coolidge, Angie follows Geena Davis’ title character as she attempts to create a new life for herself and her unborn child without her well-meaning but oblivious boyfriend (James Gandolfini’s Vinnie). Filmmaker Coolidge, working from Todd Graff’s screenplay, delivers a mostly engrossing drama that benefits from Davis’ engaging, charismatic turn as the sympathetic protagonist, and it’s clear, in that vein, that the movie’s pervasively watchable atmosphere is perpetuated by the efforts of a top-notch supporting cast (which includes Aida Turturro, Philip Bosco, and Stephen Rea). (Gandolfini, saddled with a character that could easily have become a walking cliché, offers up subtle, first-class work that remains a continuing highlight.) The relatively breezy bent of the movie’s first half eventually gives way to a far more pointedly melodramatic second half, complete with personal tragedies and shameless tearjerking episodes, and yet the fairly wild shift in tone generally works and doesn’t feel as jarring as one might’ve anticipated – which, when coupled with a satisfying closing stretch, cements Angie‘s place as an above-average endeavor that succeeds more often than it doesn’t.

*** out of ****