La cité des anges

Loose remake of Wings of Desire that goes less for the artsy approach and more for the romantic drama. Nic Cage plays an angel who falls in love with pretty surgeon Meg Ryan. Cage, as always, is an acquired taste. His usual half-ham approach to acting is on display here. If you are familiar with him and don't like his style, then you will hate this so don't bother. Ryan is adorable and pretty and can cry on cue. So she's perfect for this kind of schmaltz. Dennis Franz appears in a reworking of Peter Falk's wonderful role in the original film. Falk was the best part of Wings of Desire for me. Franz is OK here but not particularly memorable.

Despite its flaws, I was actually enjoying it for the most part. Not loving it, but enjoying it. It was pleasant enough. But the downbeat ending killed the whole thing for me. Look, you don't want to make a pretentious art film like Wings of Desire -- OK, cool, I'm with you there. But if you're going to make a mainstream love story, then stick with that and don't give me some depressing ending. It made me feel like I wasted my time with the whole thing. It had nothing profound to say and certainly didn't have the nice visuals of Wings of Desire, so it really needed to make the love story work. Instead it makes an attempt at the last minute to become something more than it is and it fails. Nice soundtrack though.

There's just one point I want to make about this movie, and that's about the OR scene when they're doing a coronary bypass. This is the first time I've ever seen a correct movie rendition of it, it's usually a baroque farce, but not here. Every instrument I could see, the bypass machine, the aortic cannula, the headlamps, the ECG monitors (and the traces!), the orders given, the type of suture, were correct (except I suspect they chose a heavier suture than normal 7-0, since a 7-0 would be very hard to see, it looked more like 4-0 or 5-0). Even the tying of knots, the Joule strengths used for defibrillation, the lidocaine dosages, the body temperature during bypass, the kind of mag the bypass operator is reading, the music (except we had Bach, country & western, Dylan or Cat Stevens, depending on surgeon and how the procedure was going), the time it will take to reprime the pump to get back on cardiac bypass again; I found not one single error! There's this one moment when everyone looks under the table, which is weird, but then Meg Ryan leaves the table, so even that is OK from a sterility point of view. I don't know if other people care, but this kind of care for detail makes a movie a lot more enjoyable for me.

Oh, one more remark: the reanimation with internal cardiac massage is a bit short, they give up a bit too soon. But that's exactly what she blames herself for, later.

In 2020 I would rather watch this movie for the tenth time than watch silly shallow romance movies of these days, this movie touch the the soul and heart, every time I feel I want a reminder of meaning of life I watch this movie.

A very different look at the world of angels and their interaction with human beings. If this were a story about the devil, IMDB would have plenty of comments so I am not surprised to read so many negative ones.

I don't believe that angels wear black, but I do believe in the premise of this movie: "sometimes things are true whether you believe in them or not."

Meg Ryan, a very unlikely choice, was thoroughly believable as an obsessive-compulsive doctor who never sleeps. When she loses a patient for the first time, she cries bitterly and cannot understand how it could have happened--all witnessed by Nicolas Cage as Seth, an angel who was sent to escort her patient to heaven. Cage allows himself to be seen by Ryan in a hospital corridor and sweetly asks, "Are you in despair?" This entire conversation sweeps the women in the audience into their evolving relationship. Yes, I guess this is definitely a woman's movie.

Others in lesser roles were quite good. Dennis Franz nails the part of a former angel who has "fallen to earth." (I do not watch his television show so this was the first time I have seen him act--I was impressed.) Andre Braugher, formerly of Homicide (a show I did watch), was terrific as Seth's closest angel friend, although he had very few lines, as usual Braugher was effective. His smile at the end of the movie stays with you.

I do think this film is underrated. For one thing, it has beautiful cinematography that just adds to the appeal of the film. Another thing I liked was the very thoughtful soundtrack, that title song is very haunting, and we just know it is going to be very sad. Some of the film is genuinely moving, and the evidence is in the chemistry of the two stars Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage. Cage gives a very moving performance as Seth, a very unusual representation of an angel, and Ryan is very charming as always as Maggie. Of the minor roles, Dennis Franz is a scene stealer, bringing some energy into a rather slow-moving story. The script was very touching, though sometimes cheesy, and there are some overly sentimental scenes like the ending, that gets a bit hard to stomach. Though, in conclusion, a lovely looking, moving and well performed film. 7/10 Bethany Cox.