Angie

Originally intended for Madonna (who can't act & would have definitely STUNK!), this was an excellent role for Geena Davis. "Angie" is a film about an Italian/American woman from the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, N.Y. Her mom left her when she was a child & because of this she has a romanticized notion of her mother & a deep fear of abandonment. She wants more out of life than her working class plumber boyfriend (and father of her child) can offer her so she falls in love with a lawyer from Ireland while pregnant(someone as far removed from her Brooklyn world as possible!) After the baby is born, the lawyer dumps her & she also feels rejected by her son (you'll have to see the movie to find out why) so she heads off to Texas to finally face her mom for some type of closure. Yes, this character's angst & situations can be overwhelming , but real life can be like that too sometimes. The musical score, by Jerry Goldsmith, is excellent (particularly "Angie's Theme") & compliments the movie wonderfully. The movie also has a knack for capturing the New York Italian/American experience authentically. At times, "Angie" feels like a hybrid of other films ("Working Girl", "Beaches", "Saturday Night Fever", "Moonstruck" & "Pretty Woman") but it works. (This film is based on the novel "Angie, I Says" by Avra Wing. In the book the main character's name is Tina Scacciapensiari & her best friend's name is Angie. The first names of these characters were switched for the film).

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.

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.

Comedy-drama from talented if erratic director Martha Coolidge concerns a modern Italian-American working woman in Brooklyn, pregnant and unmarried, finding herself curious about the mother who abandoned her and her father years before. Begins brightly, with Geena Davis seemingly well-cast in the lead, but it quickly becomes mired in colorless sub-plots (including the woman's resentful best friend and her abusive husband, a schizophrenic mother, a needy stepmother, a malformed infant, and a married boyfriend!). By the midway point, Davis begins to struggle in her role, pushing her pivotal moments too hard and losing her innate likability. Worse, this scenario is far too neat and tidy--and when the actors aren't being overly 'cute', they're screaming senselessly at each other. *1/2 from ****

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.