Single mom Lizzie (Noomi Rapace) carpools through an idyllic Melbourne neighborhood with the hedgerows in a blur, which is “Angel of Mine” director Kim Farrant’s way of establishi…
’s way of establishing that this woman on the verge of a suburban breakdown can’t see past her nose. Between her divorce, her constant crying, her mental hospital stays and her dead-end job as a makeup clerk, Lizzie’s young son needs more of her affection. “He feels your darkness,” warns her ex Mike , who’s threatening to file for full custody.
Could this child help Lizzie refocus her life? As Lizzie starts the film already an unstable mess gobbling pills in her workplace bathroom, no one, including the film, seems open to letting her babysit . Her solution is stalking — two shots of her outside, and inside, Lola’s bedroom could be “Halloween’s” Michael Myers without the mask — triggering a showdown between Lizzie and Claire that should have a gleefully shivery schadenfreude.
Farrant shies away from making an ’80s/’90s-style purple melodrama where attractions were fatal and hands rocked the cradles. Instead, “” is all hazy pastels, like a motel painting that gets more unnerving the longer one stares at it. Often, it’s too pathetic to enjoy either as insight or entertainment, as when Lizzie sabotages a date with a Prince Charming , a fairytale hunk written just to make her seem extra nuts for throwing him away.
Though Rapace can twist her face into a tragedy mask, her rival Strahovski anchors the film with a quieter performance that’s at once normal, loving, watchful and just self-satisfied enough to make you want Rapace to yank her long blonde hair. Strahovski’s Claire trusts in the power of popularity and manners, things Rapace has lost long before the story starts, and her increasing attempts to politely freeze out this vulture are delightful.
Oddly, after leaving us aching for the film to go off the rails, when “Angel of Mine” finally does in the final scene, its message is so screwy that the audience might feel as loopy as poor Lizzie. King Solomon could have warned that splitting the difference between pulp pleasure and maternal drama leaves audiences only half-satisfied.Reviewed online, Los Angeles, Aug. 28, 2019. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 98 MIN.
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