‘Angelica’: Berlin Review
Entertaining but lamentably short on shock value, this lush-looking costumer offers Freud by the numbers
After his tongue-in-cheek black comedy-fantasy about vagina dentatus, Teeth, and the stoned-out family drama Happy Tears, maverick writer-director Mitchell Lichtenstein throws his fans another curve ball with the lavish-looking, genteel ghost story Angelica, set in Victorian London and played with the serious intent of a BBC drama. Well, maybe not so tasteful as all that, considering the climactic (in more ways than one) scene between stars Jena Malone and Ed Stoppard.
An atmospheric production created by a top team that includes cinematographer Dick Pope and composer Zbigniew Preisner, it seems to be the director’s farewell to indie cult and hello to more upscale audiences. But while the rough edges have been smoothed over, there is a punch missing that would have ended the film with some insight and relevance for contemporary viewers, or at the very least, a good scream.
Despite teasing the audience with horror elements, this is not an effective horror film. The supernatural events are too few and too easily explained away by anyone who has an inkling of Freud. Unlike Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, which is an obvious comparison, the ghostly creatures that haunt the house of a young London doctor and his wife have little credibility outside the heroine’s head. And unfortunately, neurosis is rarely as interesting on screen as the inexplicable.
Based on Arthur Phillips’ even more complex novel, this is the story of a Victorian marriage destroyed by raging, out-of-control female hysteria, caused by medical ignorance, rigid gender divisions and good old sexual repression. The tale does have its goose-bumpy side, and Malone’s fine multi-register performance as the naïve shop girl Constance who marries a wealthy doctor offers some thrills.
Joseph Barton, né Bartoni (Stoppard), is a handsome gentleman-scientist who styles himself an Englishman, though his origins are Italian. The significance of this, in Constance’s eyes, is that he has irrepressible sexual appetites “too strong to be contained inside of him.” She herself is surprised by her own sensual response on their Venice honeymoon and visibly blooms into womanhood. But after the difficult birth of their first child, the doctors condescendingly tell her she can’t risk having another baby, which means the couple can never have sex again. Though Joseph tries to work around the problem, Constance starts sleeping in the nursery. Where better to exercise her anxious, over-protective maternal instinct than at the bedside of little Angelica? Soon, Mom’s horrible visions begin to take shape: giant microbes gamboling in the air against oppressive green floral wallpaper, like Eraserhead in color. Later, she sees a swarm of golden insects who, abetted by a giant snake, turn their sexual attentions on her. In Dick Pope’s magical lighting, the little critters seem like the shower of gold with which Zeus impregnated Danae in Greek myth.
Freud not being available in this story, enter Anne Montague (Janet McTeer), a former actress turned spiritualist called in by the family’s cynical maid Nora (Tovah Feldshuh) as a quack exorcist. The witchy, wide-eyed McTeer does a wonderful job ringing the evil spirits out of the house with a bell.
But instead of fleecing the gullible Constance, she offers her a listening post and feminine understanding. There are even modern undertones of mutual attraction between the two women.
At this point, it seems like there are too many good characters to strike the fire of a scary drama. But even the good, kind, faithful Joseph has his dark side, too, as Constance discovers one day when she decides to surprise him at work. In a brief but gruesome scene, she finds him in his operating theater performing vivisections on cute monkeys, puppies and other furry creatures. Though the scene is out of character for the demure homebody Constance, Malone plays it so well, it works. Sadly, this repulsive but interesting side of Joseph’s character is never pursued, but simply filed away as “science” searching for the cause of diseases.
Visually, the whole film is a sensual delight. Luciana Arrighi’s crowded interiors are imaginative revisitations of the period, complemented by Rita Ryack’s startling fantasy Victorian costumes, all beautifully commented on by Preisner’s score.
Jena Malone
Biography
Date of Birth 21 November 1984, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA
Birth Name Jena Laine Malone
Height 5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
Jena Malone is an up-and-coming actress who has numerous accomplishments despite her young years. She has grown into being a substantial presence in the movie industry.
Jena Malone (“Hunger Games: Catching Fire”)
Jena Malone was born in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and was raised by her mother, Deborah, and her mother’s partner. Beginning as a child actress, and then stepping up to roles as a young adult, Malone’s career path has been compared to that of Jodie Foster, herself a former child actress and who has co-starred with Malone in two movies. Jena is often described as having a maturity beyond her years and, in her career thus far, she has often tackled roles that are difficult and are not standard fare for actors her age.
Malone’s first claim to fame was in performing the title role in Bastard Out of Carolina (1996) for which she won the Young Artist Award, and which she filmed when she was merely ten years old. This movie dealt with issues of child abuse, violence and sex. Jena has said in later interviews that this movie and her participation in it continue to influence her life substantially.
Showing self-assurance and a clear vision of personal goals from an early age, Jena, at age 14, was encouraged to try out for Air Force One (1997), a movie that was virtually guaranteed to be a success since box-office king Harrison Ford was cast in the lead, but Jena said she’d prefer to seek other roles that were of more interest to her.
In the following years, Malone appeared in several made-for-TV movies for which she won or was nominated for many awards. In 1997, she lucked in to being cast in the blockbuster Contact (1997) where she portrayed the child version of Jodie Foster’s lead character. Foster stated that she built her character by mimicking Jena. And, in 1998, Jena was cast in the major film Stepmom (1998) where she co-starred with Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon and Ed Harris. Jena was given what was likely the best line in that movie where her character, bitter over her parents’ divorce, confronts her father who has returned home briefly; at a moment of crisis, her dad tells her “You do NOT run out on your mother”, and the rueful Malone exclaims “No — that’s YOUR job”.
Also, in 1998, Malone appeared in a two-part episode of the critically acclaimed TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993). Contrary to what might usually be expected of a teenage actress, in this episode, Jena played the complex role of the perpetrator of a crime, which she portrayed with subtlety.
At age 15, Jena was legally emancipated and thus took direct control of her finances and her career. Malone began getting more attention and acclaim in her next set of films: the artistic cult film Donnie Darko (2001); the teenage journey The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002) where she again co-starred with Jodie Foster; and the satirical Saved! (2004) which debuted Jena as the lead in a movie.
Jena has expressed an interest in directing some day, and so she is preparing for roles behind the camera as well as in front. In 2002, she co-produced American Girl (2002) while also starring in it. And, in 2003, she undertook a formal study of photography.
In early 2006, Malone debuted on the Broadway stage in the play “Doubt”. A review by Broadway.com characterized her performance as “astonishing”.
Many people in Hollywood have jobs as actors. Watch for Jena Malone. She is an artist.
Trade Mark
Usually portrays teenage girls in problems or from dysfunctional families
Trivia
Won legal emancipation from her mother, who is now barred from interfering with Jena’s career and earnings. [January 2000]
Filed suit against mother Debbie, charging mismanagement of her earnings, failure to pay taxes, and seeking emancipation
Studied photography at a community college in northern California beginning in the fall of 2002.
Half-sister, Madison Mae, born August 1997.
Briefly attended the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan.
She lived in Lake Tahoe until age 10.
Mom’s name is Debbie (born 1962).
Was originally set to play Emily in Havoc (2005), but was replaced by Bijou Phillips.
Starred as Susan Sarandon’s daughter in Stepmom (1998), and then starred alongside Susan Sarandon’s real daughter, Eva Amurri Martino, in Saved! (2004).
At the age of 12, she was the youngest person ever to be nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance in Bastard Out of Carolina (1996) until 2001 when 7 year old Dakota Fanning was nominated for I Am Sam (2001).
Turned down auditioning for Air Force One (1997).
Plays the accordion and guitar.
Replaced Evan Rachel Wood in Sucker Punch (2011).
Auditioned for a role in 127 Hours (2010).
Living in Lake Tahoe, where her favorite outdoor sport is snow sledding.
In a Broadway play “Doubt”. [January 2006]
Filming Into the Wild (2007), which was directed by Sean Penn. [October 2006]
Singer of the musical duo The Shoe.
Personal Quotes
I started acting as a child because I loved stories and wanted to be part of them. I thought it would be something I could do for a few years, but it shows no sign of going away.
I get to play a lot of teenage girls with supposed problems. But I don’t see them as problems – just part of the process of growing up.
[When told by an interviewer that she has a good head on her shoulders for someone who’s grown up in the scary world of Hollywood:] But the scary world is all around us. Whether the walls are Hollywood or the walls are New York or the walls are Afghanistan. It’s just a scary world, you have to know what you want from it, what your intentions are, and know that those things continually change.
[In reference to growing up without a father figure but rather with two mothers] I grew up with two moms. They were lovers until I was nine. Then they split up. I was the product of a one-night stand. But I met my father once when I was four. He lives somewhere in Reno. The thing is, I had two loving parents. Love in any shape or form is a beautiful thing. I didn’t grow up missing my father.
What’s the point of doing anything without music?
I have this camera so I just taped myself doing this little piece of voice-over and I sent [director Sean Penn] a DVD. Four days later, he called me back and said he usually never hires anyone without meeting them, but could I do it? Literally, I would wash the floor for him. I just respect every part of what he’s done with his career. (On landing her role in Into the Wild (2007)).