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Snow Angels

• Directed and written by David Gordon Green
• Starring Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, Michael Angarano
• Classification: 14A
• Rating:

Thanks to the offhanded grace and sun-glazed landscapes of his 2000 feature debut George Washington, David Gordon Green began the decade as one of the most promising new talents in American cinema.

The film's unusual portrayal of the American South and air of spontaneity and sincerity were indeed very fetching, even if the young Texan director's penchant for preciousness and stylistic debt to the seventies films of Terrence Malick were exacerbated in his sophomore effort, the talky indie romance All the Real Girls.

Green's two subsequent features have also made it hard to sustain that initial enthusiasm. While Snow Angels is something of a recovery from Green's overwrought 2004 thriller Undertow, this essentially modest drama — adapted by Green from the novel by Stewart O'Nan — is undone by some immodest ambitions and strained performances.

Set in a snowy Pennsylvania town, though shot in Halifax, the film depicts the travails of two broken families. A waitress with a young daughter, Annie (Kate Beckinsale) is wary of the efforts of her estranged husband, Glenn (Sam Rockwell), to insinuate himself back into the fold. The aggressive manner in which Glenn, a former alcoholic, flaunts his newfound Christian faith suggests he's not doing as well as he claims. Annie's troubles are witnessed by Arthur (Michael Angarano), a sweet-tempered teenage co-worker whom she used to babysit. He's not in much of a position to help her, being distracted by his parents' separation and the romantic attentions of Lila (Olivia Thirlby), a new classmate.

It is with the younger characters that Green seems most comfortable. Rendered with the same care and delicacy that made George Washington so special, the scenes of Arthur and Lila's courtship feel awkward, exciting and authentic. Given the chemistry that Green fosters between Angarano and Thirlby — last seen in Juno as the expanding heroine's best friend — it's unfortunate that the director is less sure-handed when dealing with the better-known members of the cast. Beckinsale effectively evinces both anger and rue in the early scenes, but her performance has only those two notes. In his attempt to convey Glenn's backslide into alcoholism and violent behaviour, Rockwell is unconvincing to the point of seeming hammy. By the time the tale culminates in tragedy — foreshadowed by the gunfire heard in the flash-forward that opens the film — Rockwell's wailing, muttering and scenery-chewing have drained Snow Angels of whatever emotional power it had accumulated.

The heavy-headed portrayal of Glenn's religious mania also suggests that his madness is not an aberration but evidence of a larger spiritual malaise within American society. With O'Nan's book as his guide, Green tries to remove the veneer to reveal — to borrow a phrase from Bruce Cockburn — the trouble with normal. But the big picture is nowhere near as interesting as the minor details in Snow Angels, from the amiable chatter of Annie and her restaurant co-workers to the shy, tentative flirting of Arthur and Lila. Thoughtfully crafted but ultimately lugubrious, Green's latest only really connects when the director sticks to the small stuff.

Snow Angels opens today in Vancouver and Toronto, and on March 28 in Montreal .

Special to The Globe and Mail