The Angel

The Angel follows a young woman (Maria Bonnevie’s Lea) as she attempts to kick a crippling addiction to heroin after her daughter is born, with the disjointed plot chronicling her present struggles as well as her bleak past (ie her relationship with an abusive stepfather). Noted documentary filmmaker Margreth Olin, making her fiction debut here, has infused The Angel with a pervasive air of authenticity that initially proves effective at compensating for the overtly familiar storyline, with the atmosphere of gritty realism perpetuated by Bonnevie’s stirring turn as the downtrodden central character. Such positives are inevitably rendered moot, however, by the increasingly predictable trajectory of The Angel‘s narrative, and there’s little doubt that the protagonist’s less-than-sympathetic nature exacerbates the film’s various problems (ie it’s hard to root for a character that would choose heroin over her own child). And while there are a few admittedly compelling sequences sprinkled here and there (eg Lea reluctantly hands over her young daughter to foster parents), The Angel‘s inherently run-of-the-mill sensibilities ultimately prevent it from becoming anything more than a showcase for Bonnevie’s undeniably impressive performance.

** out of ****