Moody thriller Angel Of Mine strangely unsatisfying despite star turn
Swedish actress Noomi Rapace is so powerful in this moody Australian thriller, it throws the rest of the cast — and the world they inhabit — off balance.
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ANGEL OF MINE
Three stars
Director: Kim Farrant
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Yvonne Strahovski, Richard Roxburgh
Rating: MA15+
Running time: 98 minutes
Verdict: Not quite suburban Noir
Swedish actress Noomi Rapace does “unhinged” with a level of commitment that’s hard to match. Her performance in this moody Australian thriller is so powerful, it throws the rest of the cast — and the world they inhabit — off balance. Perhaps the story would have benefited from a less naturalistic treatment; one more in keeping with the melodramatic nature of the plot.
While The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’s self-destructive tendencies were native to her Scandi-Noir landscape, they feel dangerously foreign to the suburban streets of Melbourne, where Angel Of Mine is set. Even a mother’s grief has socially proscribed limits. But Lizzie (Rapace), who has been driven mad by the death of her infant daughter, doesn’t recognise them.
Lizzie’s failure to “move on” has already cost her her marriage (to Luke Evans). It’s about to see her lose custody of her only son (Finn Little), who is languishing in the sister’s shadow.
Lizzie is so obsessed by child she lost, she neglects the one who has been left behind.
Dropping him off at a classmate’s birthday party, she spots a young girl who she becomes convinced is her late daughter. At this point, her carefully medicated desperation spirals out of control.
She begins to stalk Lola (Annika Whiteley), sneaking into her bedroom when nobody is watching, whisking her off for a boat ride while her parents are otherwise occupied, taking photographs of the unsuspecting child at the school gate.
The rapaciousness of Lizzie’s gaze is deeply unsettling. And there’s an inappropriate intimacy to her surreptitious sniffs of the child’s natural body odour.
Forget bunny boilers, this feels so much worse. Her abject neediness is hard to endure.
There is no way this can end well. Even Lizzie’s concerned mother (a Swedish-speaking Tracy Mann) and old-school psychiatrist (Mirko Grillini) have a bad feeling.
At the opposite end of the maternal spectrum is Lola’s mother Claire (The Handmaid’s Tale’s Yvonne Strahovski), who is comfortable almost to the point of smugness.
She’s got the pigeon pair, the husband, the swimming pool … But as Lizzie’s transgressions escalate, Claire reveals her own, hitherto unexpected dark side. As it turns out, the pair’s relationship is much more complex than it initially seems. But Angel Of Mine’s twist doesn’t carry as much emotional weight as it should. And that makes the resolution feel strangely unsatisfying. Despite Rapace’s compelling performance, director Kim Farrant’s (Strangerland) remake of the 2008 French film L’Empreinte fails to add up to the sum of its parts.
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Originally published as Moody thriller Angel Of Mine strangely unsatisfying despite star turn