A review of David
Gordon Green's new film from the 2007 Sundance Film
Festival
Kate Beckinsale
is a tough one. Most know her as the chilly star of two
Underworld movies, or as the love interest in any
number of dreadful hit movies (want Click and
Serendipity? You can have ‘em). Lately
she’s been buffed and waxed into movie star
perfection, but it may surprise some that under that
immobile brow and those pumpkin-colored highlights are
the instincts of a real actress. You get glimpses of
that Kate Beckinsale in Snow Angels, the
latest from All the Real Girls writer/director
David Gordon Green.
Beckinsale plays
one half of a married couple with the shambling Sam
Rockwell, and to put him in a scene with the tightly-wound
Beckinsale is to know immediately why these characters
have begun separation proceedings. Beckinsale copes by
sniping at her young daughter and carrying on an
affair with Nicky Katt, and while she’s
intermittently interested in letting Rockwell back
into her life (at least, before he inevitably screws
things up again), a terrible tragedy severs their
chances for reconciliation and sends both characters into
some mighty dark places.
Green knows that
things are going to get rough in this story, and before
they do, you’re allowed some hammy improv curlicues
from the clever Katt and Rockwell, not to mention the
always sublime Amy Sedaris as one of
Beckinsale’s coworkers. But despite the directorial
precision on display here, and the resuscitation of
Beckinsale as an interesting actress, the story
remains stubbornly uninvolving. These actors go through some
intense stuff, but you watch it happen at arms length, never
feeling the things for them you’d need to in
order to invest in the grim second half. What you end
up with, then, is a movie as pretty – but as cold- as
its title.
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