Snow Angels.

"Snow Angels exhibits a mellowing - if not full abandonment - of [David Gordon] Green's trademark emo-Malick mannerisms," writes Nathan Lee in the Voice. "His camera can't entirely resist an ersatz-70s art effect here and there, but by and large he plays things straight, erratic as they become. What saves this heavy, heavy material from sinking into the chill, familiar turf of the Small-Town Midwinter Tragedy is his practiced ear for verbal idiosyncrasy and off-kilter conversation rhythms."

"The wintry pall of fatalism that hangs over all of [the characters] deadens the possibility of melodrama, which might have given Snow Angels a touch of lurid life," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "This is not an updated Peyton Place, but rather the kind of self-enclosed, hard-bitten American place fashionable in American fiction of the 1970s and 80s and in American independent cinema ever since."

Updated through 3/11.

Green's "acclaimed debut George Washington has a wrenching last act, but much of it is a strange and estranging blend of the amateurish and the slick - a kind of cinematic dyslexia in which nothing quite fits," writes David Edelstein in New York. "Scene by scene his new film, Snow Angels, isn't terrible. Parts of it are amusing, and there are wintry images that eat into the mind. But it's one of the most disjunctive things I've ever sat through."

"Like Undertow and All the Real Girls before it, Snow Angels is an obnoxious pageant of effusive style, the cinematic equivalent of a Precious Moments figurine," writes Ed Gonzalez at Slant. "This one is a twee Nashville, set - according to the film's press notes - in a small town north of the Mason Dixon line, though it may as well be squeezing audiences into the snow globe Orson Welles drops to the floor in the opening of Citizen Kane."

"Unfortunately, the material never avoids the feel of a retread of familiar themes and popular independent movie conceits," writes Robert Levin at cinemattraction. "By the time Snow Angels reaches its conclusion, given the flat bifurcated structure and the narrative's heavy borrowing from other, better such dramas, one can't help but conclude that this filmmaker's particular talents are ill-suited to the genre."

"More remarkable than Snow Angels's sheer ponderousness - think also: languid photography - is that Green still can't invent a credible conversation," writes Michael Joshua Rowin in the L Magazine.

"Snow Angels confines itself to predictable plot points (guns! tragedy!) and scenes which lack distinctiveness that would lift them above middle-of-the-road domestic drama," writes Jürgen Fauth.

For IFC News, Aaron Hillis talks with Green "about the North Carolina film scene, what attracts him to youthful characters and how he ended up directing a Judd Apatow stoner comedy, the upcoming Pineapple Express."

S James Snyder profiles Green for the New York Sun.

Earlier: Reviews from Sundance 07.

"Taking place in a northern American small town, smack-dab in the middle of Russell Banks country, the plaid-clad, winter-set tragedy of Snow Angels superficially recalls Paul Schrader's Affliction and Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter," writes Bruce Bennett in the New York Sun. "But Mr Green and his cast have blessed their adaptation of Stewart O'Nan's Banksian first novel with the same limpid sensitivity that characterizes the director's previous films."

"George Washington was a true example of filmmaking that came from outside mainstream thinking and revenue streams," writes Armond White in the New York Press. "But in pursuing his career, Green corrupts his original poetic idiosyncrasies with the standard indie (or Sundancey) affectations."

Scott Tobias at the AV Club: "In spite of strong performances and a characteristically vivid sense of place, the film feels disjointed and heavy; it's a miserablist slog that lacks the transcendent lightness of Green's other work, even as he tries awkwardly to impose his sensibility."

Updates, 3/8: "There are about two or three different films fighting for control of the screen during David Gordon Green's powerful but flawed Snow Angels, and in the end none of them win," writes Chris Barsanti at Filmcritic.com.

For Time's Richard Corliss, Snow Angels "has an emotional density that trumps its familiarity."

"This is very strong stuff that mops up the floor with the likes of Little Children, with which it shares a number of thematic points," writes Premiere's Glenn Kenny.

"Where Paranoid Park is almost purely an aesthetic experience, to the point where [Gus] Van Sant abandons any moral perspective or any coherent sense that acts have consequences, Snow Angels is a sober-sided, deterministic indie-formula narrative, full of Fine Acting, Life Lessons, Meaningful Moments and Quirky Supporting Characters," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir.

Update, 3/11: A face-off at Reverse Shot: Jeff Reichert vs Michael Joshua Rowin.

Posted by dwhudson at March 7, 2008 7:23 AM