A biopic about the author Janet Frame. She was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, to Scottish immigrants. Her twin died at childbirth, and there were five siblings in the family. Janet's sister Myrtle drowned. Janet received a scholarship and studied together her sister Isabel, but the latter also drowned. Janet found a job as a teacher, but was too timid to teach. She loved writing. A teacher read about her attempted suicide, and thus Janet was sent to a mental asylum for 8 years, diagnosed with schizophrenia. After winning a literature prize, Janet is released from the asylum and travels to London for a writing scholarship. She met an American in Ibiza and had an affair with him. Her novel was published, but her publisher demanded she write a bestseller. Back in New Zealand, Janet is approached by reporters for becoming a famous writer.
"An Angel at My Table" is an emotional and touching biopic about Janet Frame, who withered in harsh real life, but flourished in art of writing. The director Jane Campion assembles the movie as a series of lyrical loose vignettes, and thus the storyline feels disconnected, but then again, that is often the case in real life: it is chaos. The problem, though, is that some episodes are better, while some are weaker and less interesting. It is sad watching all the tragedies and hardship that befall Janet, showing that the childhood and growing up of artists is sometimes even worse than our own. At 2.5 hours, the movie is overlong and overstretched, yet Kerry Fox is great in the leading role, with that giant red hair which makes her stand out wherever she goes. The two most fascinating segments: one is when Janet is sent to a mental asylum, and her fragile state is obviously misplaced there (the nurses escort patients to four consecutive toilets without doors, to watch over them so that they might not harm themselves, and when Janet is too ashamed to defecate in front of them watching, one nurse just pulls Janet's pants down and makes her sit on the toilet seat; electroshock therapy; Janet writes poems on the wall...). The other is when Janet arrives in London after a long ship voyage, and is lost in the city: when she goes to a hotel, she is horrified that her reservation by mail didn't pass through, so she has to find another place to stay. Campion has a sense for conjuring up a few dreamy images in nature, which amends even some lesser melodramatic (albeit true) moments.
Grade:++
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