Based on the best selling autobiography by Frank McCourt, ANGELA'S ASHES explores the life of Frank as a boy in 3 stages. The first of it being the toddler phase. After a dreadful experience in America, his family returns to poverty stricken Ireland (Limerick) and hope things will go better. Unfortunately Lady Luck decided to stay behind in America, and one tragedy after another befalls them. And then you have to remember that his family wasn't well off, with a father (Robert Carlyle) who rather drinks than thinks.

Prejudice against Frankie's Northern Irish father makes his search for employment in the Republic difficult despite his having fought for the IRA, and when he does find money, he spends the money on booze.

The second stage we find Frank to be at primary school. This is the time of experience, yet still many hardships lie ahead. Inside himself there is conflict between his hate of his father's immoral approach to family life and the love he still cherishes towards him. Even after his father leaves them for good, Frank realizes that he will always love his father.

The final stage of the movie can be compared to that of hope. Frank is now nearly leaving high school; gets a job as mail deliveryman, but more than that, he learns about the wonderful desire women awaken in men. Brought up under a strict way of believing and interpreting, a quite vigorous and recurring sexual encounter with a girl opens his world to new possibilities.

The movie prides itself with a great cast. Of all the Frank's it's the younger one Joe Breen, who definitely steals the spotlight. It is very seldom you find a young actor like this who portrays the role with so much credibility and brilliancy. Robert Carlyle (Frank's father) and Emily Watson as the mother deliver outstanding acting, once more.

The minute I exited the cinema, I once more realized the value of diversity when someone behind me said, "Wasn't that just brilliant". I thought ANGELA'S ASHES to be a very depressed, slow-moving and boring film, but hey, that's just my opinion. Though movies like "My Life So Far" and "Cinema Paradiso" from the same genre appealed to me, somehow ANGELA'S ASHES just didn t make the grade.

It just felt that the movie never amounted to something greater and the meant to be climaxes just never attained their full potential. Add this to the fact that the movie is over two hours long one can understand that it becomes quite a tiresome adventure of a boy's hardship youth in Ireland.

But maybe you will be one of the people who will enjoy this movie, because when I surfed the Internet, I found in the Internet Movie Database that from 286 votes this movie got a 75% rating.

A wise man once said that if you have nothing positive to say, then shut up. It isn't easy when you know there must be something of greater value in a movie, but you just can't seem to find it and everyone else does. Unfortunately, that is how I feel about ANGELA'S ASHES. It just didn't do anything for me.

To advise someone who want to go and see it, it would be best to say ANGELA'S ASHES is a tragic drama autobiography in the line of "My Life So Far", embroided with the Irish style found in "From The Sea" . Though full of tragedy, the hope that survives is the source to survival.

-- Jean-Pierre Pellissier