The Stone Angel

What I loved about the on-screen adaptation of The Stone Angel is that it stayed so true to the novel! Great film! As an avid reader, I find the worst thing about film adaptations is that the book somehow gets lost in translation. You can tell the Stone Angel team was careful not to let this happen with this film.

Ellen Burstyn was an excellent casting choice for the role of Hagar and she is definitely a movie superstar. However, I think the Canadian actress (Christine Horne) chosen to play Hagar in her younger years also did an incredible job that warrants great praise. I haven't seen any of Horne's previous work but I will definitely seek it out after seeing her Stone Angel performance.

I heard the Canadian theatrical release of The Stone Angel is going to happen in Spring or Summer 2008. I can't wait to see it on the big screen again!

Margret Laurence probably didn't intend on having any of her novels adopted for film, let alone the Stone Angel. Hagar, as a character, was one who constantly challenged the social norm (Gainsay who dare, anyone?), and ended up nearly sacrificing her humanity in the process. The symbols in the book (the Stone Angel, Silver Thread, etc, etc.) are constant reminders of this struggle of the old and new, and the carnage (so to speak) along the way.

While the film is reasonably faithful to the plot of the book (but it isn't really a plot kind-of storytelling, is it?), I think it missed the point on capturing the spirit of the film. Hagar's defiance (for the sake of defiance) was not there. Bram could have been a lot more crude than portrayed, and Hagar's father could have been played more "traditionally", so to speak. If the filmmaker would insisted on stronger portrayals, the film would drive the point straight to home.

Along the same vein, why should we see cell phones, organic produce, and other modernizations? Are we trying make some points for the sake of making some points (e.g., the Muslim girlfriend and the Native people). Hagar and co. are everything but politically correct in the book, so why should we see that in the film version. Modernization may be an excuse for a low-budget operation, but using that as an excuse to send subliminal politically-correct messages that are totally irrelevant to the novel (and the film) seems like throwing punches below the intellect.

There is also the audience. It seems that we have been conditioned to see bitter old people as cute and lovable. Why should be laugh every time Hagar is at her tantrums? I doubt Magaret Laurence wanted her readers to laugh at, or with, Hagar. These people are frustrated and are full of angst, and all we do is to laugh at them. I don't think it did Hagar and other folks in her situation any justice.

I was very moved by the story and because I am going through something similar with my own parents, I really connected. It is so easy to forget that someone whose body is failing was once vibrant and passionate. And then there's the mistakes they made and have to live with. I loved Ellen Burstyn's performance and who is Christine Horne? She's fantastic! A real find. There is probably the most erotic scene I've ever seen in a film, yet nothing was shown - it was just so beautifully done. Overall the look and feel of the film was stunning, a real emotional journey. Cole Hauser is very very good in this picture, he humanizes a man spiraling downwards. I liked the way the filmmaker approached this woman's life, never sentimental, never too much - just enough to hook us in, but not enough to bog down.

In Canadian director Kari Skogland's film adaptation of the Margaret Laurence novel The Stone Angel Ellen Burstyn is Hagar Shipley, a proud and cantankerous woman approaching her nineties who wishes to remain independent until the very end, stubbornly refusing to be placed in a nursing home by her well-meaning son Marvin. Filmed in Manitoba, Canada and set in the fictional town of Manawaka, The Stone Angel is a straightforward and conventional interpretation of the book that has been required reading in Canadian high school English classes for almost half a century.

The title of the film comes from the stone statue erected on Hagar's mother's grave which serves as a metaphor for Hagar's inability to express emotion during her tumultuous lifetime. Burstyn brings vulnerability and humor to the role but is a bit too likable to fully realize the ego-driven, self-defeating character who managed to alienate her wealthy father, her well-meaning but alcoholic husband, and both of her sons. As she nears the end of her days, she reflects that "pride was my wilderness and the demon that led me there was fear. I was alone, never anything else, and never free, for I carried my chains within me, and they spread out from me and shackled all I touched".

Confronting having to spend her last days in a nursing home, Hagar looks back at her life and looks at her failed relationships, her recollections shown in flashbacks without voice-over narration. The story begins with a dance that she attended as a young girl. Chaperoned by her Aunt Dolly, she meets her future husband, the previously married Bram Shipley (Cole/Wings Hauser), a poor farmer whose reputation in the town is sullied because of his association with the Native American population. The young Hagar is played by Christine Horne who is exceptional in her first feature role. Despite Hagar's pleading, her relationship with Bram is rejected by her cold and rigid father whose refusal to attend the wedding starts the marriage off on the wrong foot. This is exacerbated by his leaving all of his money to the town of Manawaka, condemning the young couple to a life of poverty.

Going through the motions of her marriage to Bram, Hagar withdraws from social activities to prevent being rejected by the town's upper classes. When she produces two sons, Marvin (Dylan Baker) and John (Kevin Zegers), she is unable to give them the love that they need. "Every joy I might have held in my man or any child of mine or even the plain light of morning", she reflects, "all were forced to a standstill by some break of proper appearances…When did I ever speak the heart's truth?" Like the biblical Hagar who fled to the desert because she could not tolerate further affronts to her pride, Hagar leaves Manawaka to live in Ontario but eventually returns to the Shipley farm.

As the scene shifts back to the present, Hagar runs away to an abandoned house near the ocean that she remembers from her childhood to escape from being placed in a nursing home by Marvin and his wife Doris (Sheila McCarthy), Here she meets a young man named Leo (Luke Kirby) who takes an interest in her and compels her to look at and take responsibility for the mistakes she made in her life. The Stone Angel pulls out all the emotional stops but never fully develops its characters to the point where I felt any stake in the story's outcome, although the spirited performance by Ellen Page as John's devoted but naive girlfriend and the moving final scenes bring a new energy to the film's second half.

As perhaps one of the few Canadians who did not read the book in high school, I thought I would add my comments. Seeing the movie without knowing the story beforehand in no way detracted from the film. The characters have so many complexities, everyone can relate to them in their own way. The brilliance of the adaptation is that everyone is allowed to project their own perceptions onto the lives of the characters, rather than being spoon-fed an opinion. You can love them or dislike them, and still feel the emotional impact of the movie. Wonderful performances by Ellen Burstyn and Christine Horne really bring the characters to life. I'd highly recommend it.