Date with an Angel

Directed by Tom McLoughlin, Date with an Angel follows Michael E. Knight’s Jim Sanders as he discovers a broken-winged angel (Emmanuelle Béart) in his swimming pool and is eventually forced to protect her after everyone finds out – including his irate fiancé (Phoebe Cates’ Patty) and ambitious friends. Filmmaker McLoughlin, working from his own screenplay, delivers an exceedingly, excessively languid endeavor that remains terminally underwhelming from start to finish, with the arms-length atmosphere compounded by a head-scratchingly uneventful narrative and overall absence of compelling characters. And although McLoughlin has peppered the proceedings with a very small handful of engaging sequences, including an amusing scene wherein Jim’s friends attempt to stage a press conference, Date with an Angel is, for the most part, saddled with a hopelessly uninvolving vibe that ensures it feels much, much longer than its 104 minutes – which is a shame, ultimately, given that there does exist a kernel of potential in the movie’s larger-than-life setup. (And this is all to say nothing of Alex Thomson’s hazy, entirely unappealing cinematography.)

** out of ****