contemporary world cinema for salmon arm and kelowna |
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Stone Angel
Country: Canada
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The film, The Stone Angel , is the much-anticipated adaptation of Margaret Laurence's landmark Canadian novel of the same name. As flinty and immovable as the stone angel itself, Hagar Shipley (Ellen Burstyn, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood ) is defined by the fierce pride she inherited from her father. Facing imminent death, yet refusing to yield to mortality, Hagar's mind conflates past and presence as she makes a final grasp for independence, finding instead an unexpected and humbling reconciliation. Now living with her son Marvin (Dylan Baker, Happiness, Fido ) the elderly Hagar is brought to a nursing home –to see what she thinks. Her response is predictable--she later bolts from her son's house determined to find a seaside home she remembers from her youth. Throughout this journey, chapters in her life coalesce and we come to know the radiant young woman who is disowned when she marries the rough bold Bram Shipley (Cole Hauser, Dirty ). Romantic illusions soon dissipate. Her disdain for Bram, exacerbated by discontent with her own unfulfilled ambitions, incites a hereditary flaw as she denies her children the parental approval she desired from her father. Burstyn's performance as the elderly Hagar lays bare the paradoxes of a woman overwhelmed with pride; the rest of the cast boasts some of Canada 's best young actors including Ellen Page ( Juno ) as Arlene, and Christine Horne, luminous as the young Hagar. Director Kari Skogland adapts the well-loved novel faithfully and with integrity, bringing the fictional Manawaka vividly to life. “…how timeless this story truly is.” jadedexpressions.com |
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