Falling Angels (film)
Encyclopedia
Falling Angels is a 2003
independent film by Scott Smith
, based on the novel of the same name by Barbara Gowdy
and adapted for the screen by poet and author Esta Spalding
. It is the second feature film by Scott Smith, writer, producer and director of Rollercoaster
(1999). Set in the late 60's, the film is a dark comedy focusing on the coming of age
of three sisters' and their struggle for independence in a dysfunctional family
. It is also a story about the destructive effects of secrecy between parents and children.
suburb, and the Field family's fragile domestic peace is coming to an end. The story is told in loops and flashbacks. With the opening and final scenes at Niagara Falls
, the bulk of the film depicts the events leading to the funeral scene shown at the beginning. In the background looms the tragedy of the suspicious death years ago of the first-born son; a pervasive and never spoken of subject.
The household is ruled by Jim Field basing on his experiences in the military, as is illustrated by a flashback sequence to the two weeks he forced his family to spend trapped in the self-built backyard bomb shelter, for "practice". Jim works as a used-car salesman and he is keen on keeping up appearances in front of the neighbors. He is psychologically unstable, drinks heavily and cheats on his wife although he is also oddly protective of her, insisting that his daughters watch her all the time. His depressed wife Mary, a onetime dancer, has escaped into apathy and alcoholism a long time ago. She lives a catatonic life on the living room couch, staring absently at the television, her ever-present coffee cup full of whiskey impassively filled by one family member or the other.
Each of the three teenaged daughters has her own way to cope with the deleterious family atmosphere. They try to make their own experiences while struggling with their family duties and concern for their mother. Norma is the eldest daughter and the most responsible element of the family; quiet, subdued and selfless, she overburdens herself with domestic tasks and responsibilities, and patiently puts up with her father's antics. She is also the only one intent on keeping the memory of her brother and on uncovering the secret around his death. After unexpectedly becoming friends with a neighboring girl, she lets some pleasure into her dreary life. As the opposite of Norma, middle child Lou fights for her independence, standing up to her father and loving her mother but despising her weakness. She assuages her fantasies of rebellion, experimenting with boys and drugs. Not as involved as Norma in the housekeeping, nor as rebellious as Lou, sweet-looking Sandy devotes herself to becoming a perfect woman, with her own naive sense of femininity and sexuality. She engages in an affair with an older, married shoe salesman which ends up an awkward threesome scene with the man's twin brother, and Sandy learning that she is pregnant.
The story builds from one small event to another. Things climax during one long New Year's Eve night, as a dramatic event and the final admission of the secret definitively put an end to the Fields' "pretend normal" family life. The ending is left open, leaving the viewer to guess whether or not the characters will be able to start a new and more honest life and reconstruct family bonds.
meant to put it to film but the rights to a film adaptation were already tied up and it took five years to acquire them. Lynne Stopkewich
was signed as writer/director in 1997 and produced a first draft but she desisted in 2000 to work on other films after the financial issues had delayed the project, recommending Scott Smith as director. Esta Spalding was hired for scriptwriting. Budget was eventually secured in October 2002.
. Principal filming lasted from 19 November 2002 to 17 December 2002, with the final scene shot at the edge of Niagara Falls in February 2003.
Falling Angels was the first feature film to utilize the Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios.
Director of Photography Greg Middleton reported that the short shooting schedule was challenging, as was the one-day shooting in Niagara Falls in winter weather and filming in Moose Jaw
with the Canadian Forces Snowbirds practising overhead.
where it was named one of "Canada's Top Ten Films this year" by the Toronto Film Festival Group. It won the award for Best Ontario Film at Cinéfest Sudbury
2003.
Director Scott Smith won the Nanaimo inFEST Short Film and Awards Festival Silvie Award (2003) and was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Direction by the Directors Guild of Canada
(2004) while production designer and art director Rob Gray
was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Production Design.
The film received two Genie Awards
in 2004: Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design
(Rob Gray and Christina Kuhnigk) and Best Achievement in Music - Original Song
(Ken Whiteley For the song Tell Me), and was nominated four times: Best Achievement in Cinematography
(Gregory Middleton), Best Achievement in Overall Sound
(Warren St. Onge, Steph Carrier
and Lou Solakofski), Best Achievement in Sound Editing
(David McCallum, Steven Hammond, Ronayne Higginson, David Rose and Jane Tattersall) and Best Screenplay, Adapted
(Esta Spalding).
Callum Keith Rennie was nominated at the 2004 Leo Award for Best Male Lead Performance in a Feature Length Drama and at the 2003 Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor in a Canadian Film
2003 in film
The year 2003 in film involved some significant events. Releases of sequels took place with movies like The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Pokémon Heroes, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,...
independent film by Scott Smith
Scott Smith (director)
Scott Smith is a Canadian television and film director, born in Alberta and raised in British Columbia. He has directed episodes of the television series Cold Squad and This Is Wonderland. He has won multiple film festival awards for his 1999 film Rollercoaster...
, based on the novel of the same name by Barbara Gowdy
Barbara Gowdy
Barbara Gowdy, CM is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. Born in Windsor, Ontario, she is the long-time partner of poet Christopher Dewdney and resides in Toronto.-Literary career:...
and adapted for the screen by poet and author Esta Spalding
Esta Spalding
Esta Alice Spalding is a Canadian author, screenwriter and poet who won the Pat Lowther Award in 2000 for Lost August. Born in Boston, Massachusetts to Phillip Spalding and Linda Spalding, she grew up in Hawaii and currently resides in Guelph, Ontario....
. It is the second feature film by Scott Smith, writer, producer and director of Rollercoaster
Rollercoaster (1999 film)
Rollercoaster is a 1999 teen drama film directed by Scott Smith. It is about five teens who escape a group home and travel to a defunct amusement park, hoping to find a notorious kid-friendly security guard who will run the rides for them...
(1999). Set in the late 60's, the film is a dark comedy focusing on the coming of age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...
of three sisters' and their struggle for independence in a dysfunctional family
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...
. It is also a story about the destructive effects of secrecy between parents and children.
Plot
The year is 1969, the place is an OntarioOntario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
suburb, and the Field family's fragile domestic peace is coming to an end. The story is told in loops and flashbacks. With the opening and final scenes at Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...
, the bulk of the film depicts the events leading to the funeral scene shown at the beginning. In the background looms the tragedy of the suspicious death years ago of the first-born son; a pervasive and never spoken of subject.
The household is ruled by Jim Field basing on his experiences in the military, as is illustrated by a flashback sequence to the two weeks he forced his family to spend trapped in the self-built backyard bomb shelter, for "practice". Jim works as a used-car salesman and he is keen on keeping up appearances in front of the neighbors. He is psychologically unstable, drinks heavily and cheats on his wife although he is also oddly protective of her, insisting that his daughters watch her all the time. His depressed wife Mary, a onetime dancer, has escaped into apathy and alcoholism a long time ago. She lives a catatonic life on the living room couch, staring absently at the television, her ever-present coffee cup full of whiskey impassively filled by one family member or the other.
Each of the three teenaged daughters has her own way to cope with the deleterious family atmosphere. They try to make their own experiences while struggling with their family duties and concern for their mother. Norma is the eldest daughter and the most responsible element of the family; quiet, subdued and selfless, she overburdens herself with domestic tasks and responsibilities, and patiently puts up with her father's antics. She is also the only one intent on keeping the memory of her brother and on uncovering the secret around his death. After unexpectedly becoming friends with a neighboring girl, she lets some pleasure into her dreary life. As the opposite of Norma, middle child Lou fights for her independence, standing up to her father and loving her mother but despising her weakness. She assuages her fantasies of rebellion, experimenting with boys and drugs. Not as involved as Norma in the housekeeping, nor as rebellious as Lou, sweet-looking Sandy devotes herself to becoming a perfect woman, with her own naive sense of femininity and sexuality. She engages in an affair with an older, married shoe salesman which ends up an awkward threesome scene with the man's twin brother, and Sandy learning that she is pregnant.
The story builds from one small event to another. Things climax during one long New Year's Eve night, as a dramatic event and the final admission of the secret definitively put an end to the Fields' "pretend normal" family life. The ending is left open, leaving the viewer to guess whether or not the characters will be able to start a new and more honest life and reconstruct family bonds.
Cast
- Callum Keith RennieCallum Keith RennieCallum Keith Rennie is a British-born Canadian television and film actor. He started his career in Canadian film and television projects, where his portrayal of Stanley Raymond Kowalski in the TV series Due South was his first international success...
as Jim Field - Miranda RichardsonMiranda RichardsonMiranda Jane Richardson is an English stage, film and television actor. She has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and has won two Golden Globes and a BAFTA during her career....
as Mary Field - Katharine IsabelleKatharine IsabelleKatherine Isobel Murray , better known by her screen name Katharine Isabelle, is a Canadian actress, best known for her portrayal of Ginger in Ginger Snaps, and as Gibb in Freddy vs. Jason.-Biography:...
as Lou Field - Kristin Adams as Sandy Field
- Monté Gagné as Norma Field
- Mark McKinneyMark McKinneyMark Douglas Brown McKinney is a Canadian comedian and actor, best known for his work in the sketch comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. Following the run of their television series and feature film , he went on to star in Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 1997...
as Reg and Ron - Carman Fielding as Young Lou
- Courtney Goodison as Young Sandy
- Melissa Brown as Young Norma
- Kett TurtonKett TurtonBirkett Kealy "Kett" Turton is a Canadian actor.Kett was born in Portland, Oregon, United States and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He started acting in local theater when he was 4 years old...
as Tom - Ingrid Nilson as Stella
- Kristina Hughes as Sherry
Development
Falling Angels was in development for seven years. Since reading Barbara Gowdy's novel in 1991, producer Robin CassRobin Cass
Robin Cass is a Canadian film and television producer. His projects include the feature films High Life, Falling Angels, and Lilies...
meant to put it to film but the rights to a film adaptation were already tied up and it took five years to acquire them. Lynne Stopkewich
Lynne Stopkewich
Lynne Stopkewich is a Canadian film director, particularly notable as the director of the film Kissed .-History:In 1987, Stopkewich obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in film studies from Concordia University, followed in 1996 by a Master of Fine Arts Degree in film studies from the...
was signed as writer/director in 1997 and produced a first draft but she desisted in 2000 to work on other films after the financial issues had delayed the project, recommending Scott Smith as director. Esta Spalding was hired for scriptwriting. Budget was eventually secured in October 2002.
Casting
Hiring two-time Golden Globe winner Miranda Richardson for the role of the mother was crucial to secure the involvement of production companies. More than 1,000 women were auditioned for the key roles of the sisters before settling on Katherine Isabelle, Kristin Adams and Monté Gagné. Callum Keith Rennie signed on to play the father in October 2002, one month before filming started.Filming
While the story takes place in Ontario, Falling Angels was shot on location mostly in SaskatchewanSaskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
. Principal filming lasted from 19 November 2002 to 17 December 2002, with the final scene shot at the edge of Niagara Falls in February 2003.
Falling Angels was the first feature film to utilize the Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios.
Director of Photography Greg Middleton reported that the short shooting schedule was challenging, as was the one-day shooting in Niagara Falls in winter weather and filming in Moose Jaw
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
Moose Jaw is a city in south-central Saskatchewan, Canada on the Moose Jaw River. It is situated on the Trans-Canada Highway, west of Regina. Residents of Moose Jaw are known as Moose Javians. It is best known as a retirement and tourist city that serves as a hub to the hundreds of small towns...
with the Canadian Forces Snowbirds practising overhead.
Design
Middleton took inspiration from Barbara Gowdy's family photos to re-create the atmosphere of the late 60's while "combining realism with a slightly bent reality to emphasize certain psychological aspects of the story."Awards
Falling Angels premiered at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival2003 Toronto International Film Festival
The 2003 Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 4 to September 13, 2003. A total of 336 films from 55 countries were screened during the festival...
where it was named one of "Canada's Top Ten Films this year" by the Toronto Film Festival Group. It won the award for Best Ontario Film at Cinéfest Sudbury
Cinéfest
Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival, also known as Cinéfest is an annual film festival in Sudbury, Ontario. It is the fourth largest film festival in Canada....
2003.
Director Scott Smith won the Nanaimo inFEST Short Film and Awards Festival Silvie Award (2003) and was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Direction by the Directors Guild of Canada
Directors Guild of Canada
The Directors Guild of Canada is a Canadian labour union, founded in 1962, which represents more than 3,700 professionals from 48 different occupations in the Canadian film and television industry. The DGC represents directors, assistant directors, location managers, production assistants and...
(2004) while production designer and art director Rob Gray
Rob Gray
Rob Gray is an award-winning Canadian production designer and art director.- Recognition :...
was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Production Design.
The film received two Genie Awards
24th Genie Awards
The 24th Genie Awards were held in 2004, to honour films released in 2003. The ceremony was hosted by Scott Thompson.-Best Motion Picture:*Les invasions barbares, Denise Robert, Daniel Louis and Fabienne Vonier, producers...
in 2004: Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design
Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original Song
The Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian original song.-17th Genie Awards:* Michael Turner, Swamp Baby, Peter J...
(Rob Gray and Christina Kuhnigk) and Best Achievement in Music - Original Song
Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original Song
The Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian original song.-17th Genie Awards:* Michael Turner, Swamp Baby, Peter J...
(Ken Whiteley For the song Tell Me), and was nominated four times: Best Achievement in Cinematography
Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original Song
The Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian original song.-17th Genie Awards:* Michael Turner, Swamp Baby, Peter J...
(Gregory Middleton), Best Achievement in Overall Sound
Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original Song
The Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian original song.-17th Genie Awards:* Michael Turner, Swamp Baby, Peter J...
(Warren St. Onge, Steph Carrier
Stephan Carrier
- Recognition :* 2008 Genie Award for Best Achievement in Overall Sound - Citizen Duane - Nominee * 2007 Gemini Award for Best Sound in a Dramatic Program - Above and Beyond - Nominated * 2005 Gemini Award for Best Sound in a Dramatic Program - Sex Traffic part 1 -...
and Lou Solakofski), Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original Song
The Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian original song.-17th Genie Awards:* Michael Turner, Swamp Baby, Peter J...
(David McCallum, Steven Hammond, Ronayne Higginson, David Rose and Jane Tattersall) and Best Screenplay, Adapted
Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original Song
The Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian original song.-17th Genie Awards:* Michael Turner, Swamp Baby, Peter J...
(Esta Spalding).
Callum Keith Rennie was nominated at the 2004 Leo Award for Best Male Lead Performance in a Feature Length Drama and at the 2003 Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor in a Canadian Film
Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards 2003
The 4th Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 2003, were given on 2 February 2004.-International:*Best Actor:**Sean Penn - Mystic River*Best Actress:**Charlize Theron - Monster*Best Director:...
External links
- Official site
- Official DVD Site
- Falling Angels in the Canadian Film Encyclopedia