Sadness is the million-dollar emotion in writer/director David Gordon Green's Snow Angels, a confidently made, comfortably envisioned look into a world most viewers probably know a little about: the small town.
Arguably the most American setting in film history, the small town is a place for families, communities and love. Over the past 20 years, towns have been attacked by small, low-budget films looking to uproot the demons behind each 24-hour diner.
And while most of these "indie gems" fail in spades (The Chumscrubber) or received undeserved accolades (American Beauty), Snow Angels captures life, not just in a small town, but an authenticity that may be too much for viewers to handle.
While Annie (Kate Beckinsale, Vacancy) and her estranged, loser husband Glenn (the reliable Sam Rockwell, Choke) struggle to co-exist, Arthur (Michael Angarano, The Forbidden Kingdom) meets with Lila (Olivia Thirlby, Juno) and deals with his parents' separation and general apathy.
The acting on display here is impressive to say the least. Beckinsale proves she is far more than a red carpet starlet, Rockwell gives yet another solid turn, and Angarano and Thirlby prickle with young, awkward chemistry that most any viewer under the age of 25 can relate to.
Green works with the framing of each scene here, the film moving from stationary shots that focus on the main subjects to slow tracking shots that trail away from the characters with only the audio left to provide any kind of coherency.
There are barely any hot colors in any one shot - it snows almost consistently throughout. The aestheticism fights the film's overall theme of perseverance. Its characters all struggle to motor through the daily grind of life. Some fail to do so, some get by on the skin of their teeth, and others exceed all expectations.
While indie films such as Juno or Garden State literally offer an existential look at the life of "the everyday man," Snow Angels observes real people in real trouble, with no real easy solution.
