Angela

Rebecca Miller's first feature, which won prizes at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, is being released now to coincide with the opening of her latest, Personal Velocity. Miller (daughter of playwright Arthur Miller) wrote and directed this intimate portrait of a young girl's spiritual awakening amidst the harsh realities of her dysfunctional family life. Ten-year-old Angela (Miranda Stuart Rhyne) and her younger sister Ellie (Charlotte Eve Blythe), unsettled by their increasingly manic-depressive mother (Anna Thomson), embark on a series of quests and superstitious ceremonies in hopes of helping her. Miller captures the peculiar logic of childhood, in which the world is full of signs, rituals, and magical opportunities, and the two young girls give spectacularly natural performances that contrast nicely with Thomson's more mannered and emotional work. Ellen Kuras's award-winning cinematography alternates between depictions of mundane small-town life, and the poetic realism of Angela's fantasy world. While Angela never feels like more than a deliberately told short story, this first intimation of a new cinematic voice is nevertheless engaging. A strong optional purchase. (D. Fienberg)