Angel (The Real Life of Angel Deverell) (2007)

Critic Reviews

• Mike Edwards, What Culture

  The sumptuous visuals make it eminently watchable.

• Jason Best, Movie Talk

  Ozon films this saga with a straight face, but the overripe dialogue, dodgy back-projection and unrestrained acting all signal that he is smirking behind his hand.

• Brian Tallerico, HollywoodChicago.com

  A film that's a total mess, but in kind of a beautiful way.

• Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

  With a surface like a trashy novel and the undercurrents of a social satire, Ozon's British period drama is a slightly odd mix, feeling both arch and astute at the same time.

• Derek Malcolm, This is London

  François Ozon is a Gallic Michael Winterbottom, if not in style then at least in his determination to do something different every time. As with Winterbottom, sometimes the result is great and sometimes not.

• Anthony Quinn, Independent

  The French director François Ozon has taken Elizabeth Taylor's beadily satiric novel and transformed it into a droll and somewhat disturbing fantasia on the creative temperament.

• , Sun Online

  How director Francois Ozon received a Golden Berlin Bear nomination for this shoddy movie, The Sneak will never know.

• David Edwards, Daily Mirror [UK]

  A less than heavenly time is guaranteed for anyone who parts with their hard-earned to watch this formulaic period film.

• Ellen E Jones, Total Film

  Like Ozon's 8 Women, the costumes are magnificent and Angel's mansion is a shrine to the gods of bad taste. All that's missing is a heroine worthy of Bette Davis in her heyday.

• Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph

  Choosing to clothe his whole movie in the outré frocks of a bad Technicolor romance, Ozon serves up camp fun, but that's it.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  But this really is a failure - an honourable failure, arguably, but a failure, and a pretty complete one at that.

• Kevin Maher, Times [UK]

  The film bristles with contemporary subtext and takes swipes at mediocre artists who believe their own press, and the culture of celebrity.

• Saxon Bullock, Film4

  Despite an impressive cast and a well-known director, this misfiring costume drama is a haphazard mess that ends up more unintentionally funny than emotionally engaging.

• David Jenkins, Time Out

  Ozon's film plays a difficult hand, never settling for all-out high kitsch or straight melodrama. One of the year's most charming failures.

• Anna Smith, Empire Magazine

  Garai is great, but Ozon is about as adept at directing Brits as Woody Allen. Mind you, the set and costumes are glorious: this is one expensive folly.

• Liz Braun, Jam! Movies

  Angel is both a sly take on the melodramatic films of another era -- imagine sets and scenery out of The Magnificent Ambersons, for example -- and a spoof of contemporary celebrity, among other things.

• Urban Cinefile Critics, Urban Cinefile

  Angel seems like a collection of misjudgements that required much effort, but with little satisfaction for that effort

• Bill Chambers, Film Freak Central

  [Ozon is] too tony now for the vaguely subversive pastiches with which he made his mark.

• Stax, IGN Movies

  The parts are ultimately greater than the whole in the case of Good Luck Chuck, with the overall chemistry between Cook and Alba proving more memorable than any particular joke or sequence. You may mildly enjoy Chuck as you're watching it, but the film wi

• Filip Vukcevic, IGN Movies

  Sporting an excellent performance by a very promising young actress, this is a film that forces you to pay attention. More than that, it's fulfills the first requirement of any good movie: it's one you'll want to watch again.

Read all 20 critic reviews