Angie - Una donna tutta sola

Gina is a wonderful actress and she is marvelous in this realistic portrayal of life in New York City. In all her moods her personality rings true. The film leaves some unanswered questions but so does life.

Geena Davis and a few veterans from the popular TV series, "The Sopranos" are featured in this 1994 comedy/drama claptrap from Hollywood Pictures. Davis is in the title role as an unmarried and pregnant woman who decides to leave the pressures of the big city life and start over in a more relaxed setting. The film could've been a little better if more screen time were given to Tony Soprano himself, James Gandolfini (who was very effective in bit parts and minor supporting roles before "The Sopranos" made him a breakout star).

Though Geena Davis is a great actress, good at playing particularly strong-willed women, the screenplay for "Angie" just meanders all over the place, from light comedy to the staunchest of melodramas.

I mean, what kind of a movie has a woman go into labor while gyrating in a Santa Claus suit then show her give birth to a one-armed baby, get abandoned by her married lover, watch as her stepmother breast-feeds the one-armed baby, abandons said baby, finds her long-lost mother (who it turns out is a schizophrenic), learns that one-armed baby is in a coma... all in about 15 minutes.

This was one of the most uneven films I've ever seen. Turturro's particularly good in it as the best friend, yet her character is left out of the final half hour, though she's a central character, and never returned to. Rea and Gandolfini's potentials are completely wasted in a movie that just doesn't seem to know what to do with itself.

The video box cover promised hopeful viewers that the film contained inside was "a heartwarming story brimming with irrepressible fun. This was not so. We laughed at the movie, but certainly not with it. Telling the story of a hysterical, irresponsible and certainly resistable woman, this movie may be praised by critics but whatever quality they saw in it must have wound up on the cutting room floor. The characters are unlikable and obnoxious, the plot meanders without ever deciding where it wants to go, and sheer lethargy kept us from doing what we should have done five minutes into the film and shown our VCR some mercy. Do yourself a favour and avoid this mess, whatever the video box may say.

Sometimes I wonder why Geena Davis' 1990s movies (apart from Thelma and Louise and A League of Their Own) received a lot of bad reviews. Angie isn't even as bad as some would think.

Seeing how this film was marketed when it first came out when it isn't even a romantic comedy in the first place, it was no wonder some felt there was too many dramatic things going on all at once. In truth, Angie is an adult with a lot of unresolved issues due to her childhood abandonment by her mother. This 'baggage' leads her into becoming an irresponsible, selfish adult who does not know how to make good decisions; one incident after another, Angie is really one unlikable protagonist despite having a great circle of supportive friends and family. She even has a nice guy for a fiance - someone who actually wants to marry her when she gets pregnant. What does she do instead ? Having an affair with a stranger whom she barely knows.

However, this is the whole point about the movie. At the end Angie learns that it wasn't only her who was having hard time accepting herself. All the people who are important to her, all of them are having the similar feelings - it's just different situation.

I don't know how you feel about this film, but to me, this film is about learning how to accept own's past and how to love unconditionally. Such theme is getting rarer and rarer...