Angela's Ashes film review

certificate_15

ANGELA'S ASHES

As with Lorenzo Carcaterra's Sleepers, the authenticity of Frank McCourt's memoirs - winning the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction - has been called into question by some quarters, mostly (and perhaps, notably) the poverty-stricken Limerick of his birth. Either way, director Alan Parker was evidently convinced, turning in a long, grimly epic trials-of-life drama centred on one small boy fighting for survival in the Ireland of the 30s and 40s.

The first born into a swiftly expanding family in New York's Brooklyn district, Frank McCourt (Joe Breen) was soon heading back to his parent's homeland when the tragic cot death of sister Margaret - the fifth McCourt offspring - sent mother Angela (Emily Watson) into a fit of depression and father Malachy (Robert Carlyle) an alcoholic stupor.

He was five years old. Twin siblings Eugene and Oliver would soon succumb to malnourishment and follow their sister, but with Malachy rarely in work - and then drinking most of any wages earned - the situation looked unlikely to improve.

And so Angela's Ashes unfolds as the tale of Frank and younger brother Malachy Jr's spirited attempt to make sense of life and the scummy hand they'd been dealt, variously helped and hindered by a desperate mother and passionate but wholly unreliable father.

With tough times all round and occasional flashes of black humour, this is big on smudged faces lined with tears. And that's just the audience.

Serious acting is required, of course, and while Carlyle and Watson were quickly secured for their parts and duly deliver, it took a 10 city casting call of some 15,000 to find the three childhood stages of Frank.

Parker is left to finesse the transitional stages (achieved smoothly) but in the plum roles of Young Frank (aged 5-8), Middle Frank (10-13) and Older Frank (16-19), Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens and Michael Legge not only excel individually, but crucially complement each other's performances.

Inevitably, the essential trimming of book into screenplay means that certain establishments, characters and events have been lost, and this may be the biggest obstacle to the film's success for an international audience.

A US best-seller for 117 weeks, subsequently published in 25 languages and with over six million copies sold, there's a devoted following to this tale - director Parker even began his preliminary research of Limerick with maps from an ardent Japanese website.