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Angela's Ashes
Paramount Pictures


6.0

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 7 votes
Read user comments
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FILM:

Mississippi Burning

MPAA RATING: R for sexual content and some language

Starring Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle, Joseph Breen, and Joe Breen

Based on the best selling autobiography by Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes is the story of young Frankie and his siblings being raised in abject poverty in the slums of Limerick.

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Frank McCourt (book) Laura Jones Alan Parker
DIRECTED BY:	Alan Parker
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 18, 2000 Video: July 18, 2000 Theatrical: December 22, 1999
RUNNING TIME:	145 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / Ireland

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Lacks the humor and charm that fills the book and makes it so much more than a catalog of suffering.

USA Today Mike Clark

True to the book's squalor but also finding honest humor where it can.

TNT RoughCut Christopher Brandon

I didn't want it to end. I could have easily sat there for another two-and-a-half hours to find out what happens next.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

At times an uneasy mix of cold-eyed neorealism and soft-headed sentimentality, but after its initial struggles it presents itself as a moving film, made with loving craft, a painterly eye and luscious language.

San Francisco Examiner Walter Addiego

The author calls the movie "perfect" - reassurance that the director hasn't tried to pull any fast ones.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Haunts the conscience, troubles the spirit.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The question is not whether the movie exactly duplicates the experience of the book, but whether the movie stands on its own. Angela's Ashes clearly does.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

It really gets gloomy.

Miami Herald Curtis Morgan

Something of Angela's Ashes does gets lost in translation -- mainly, its fiercely funny voice.

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

Parker has honored the core of the work and in the process turned a great memoir into a memorable movie.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

If this beautifully made if flawed film sends people back to his book, it will have done good work for sure.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Dramatic, massive in scale, at times very moving. And yet, somehow, it comes up short in terms of essential poetry.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Artfully evokes the physical realities of Irish poverty, but mostly misses the humor, lyricism and emotional charge of Frank McCourt's magical and magnificent memoir

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

What is wonderful about Angela's Ashes is Emily Watson's performance, and the other roles that are convincingly cast.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

While the film dutifully reproduces many incidents from the book, it lacks the spirit and vitality of its source. And - no small problem - it lacks McCourt's voice knitting the vignettes together.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

Not since the latest fashion layout flirted with arty desolation, has misery looked this fabulously pristine.

Newsweek David Ansen

As well-crafted and sensitive as it is, the movie remains one step removed from inspiration.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Parker's adaptation is meticulous, unsentimental, beautifully acted-- but nearly two and a half hours worth of dying babies, rain-spattered streets, ragged children and filthy, bug-infested rooms is a bit oppressive.

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

If Parker had aimed more at capturing the author's unique voice, and worried less about getting the details right, his movie might have been extraordinary as well.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's the first film I know of in which we get to see all five of the top-billed actors vomit

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

As with so many recent literary adaptations, it was the writing that was the art, not its infrastructure of plot and character.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

For those who adore McCourt's work, Angela's Ashes will most likely disappoint; for those unfamiliar with this inspiring chronicle of a survivor, it will neither impress nor dishearten to any degree.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

140 minutes of flat vignette, as dreary and uninvolving as the driving rain that never lets up on the benighted streets of Limerick.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The end result smacks more of Hollywood melodrama than true compassion for the suffering poor.

Slate David Edelstein

Has anyone involved in this disaster ever heard a real story?

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Seems populated yet uninhabited; the only real star is the gloom.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

A sharp and pungent distillation of the book. However, as far as the theme of childhood under duress goes, I found "My Life as a Dog" or the stridently Irish "Into the West" to be significantly more fulfilling.

Village Voice Amy Taubin

Lacks development and dramatic coherence.

Film.com Peter Brunette

Never more than a dull, paint-by-numbers, overly literal transcription of the book.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

If misery were inherently interesting, this adaptation starring Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle as a couple plagued by alcoholism and child mortality might be too.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

In the translation from page to film, the life seems to have gone out of the story

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The effect of the 2 1/2-hour film is deadening.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Frank S. gave it an8:
This is an excellent film. Many critics have been disappointed with it in comparison with the book but when viewed as a film in its own right it is an excellent movie.

Joe T. gave it a7:
This is quite a good movie. Despite being dominated by gloom, it retains a positive moral centre which keeps it enjoyable and heartening. It's perhaps a little too long also and it does tire a little towards the end, but it remains a very good film nonetheless.

Jay C. gave it a 1:
This is the worst movie I ever seen in my life.

Ned D. gave it a 3:
Joyless slog of a film. Parker got all of the disease, rot, depression, sludge and grime correct, but forgot to include what everyone liked about the book: the heart.

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Angela's Ashes Paramount Pictures

Angela's Ashes
Paramount Pictures