Angela's Ashes is a well made picture, and one of the better movie to come out this year. Also, this film is Alan Parker's best since Pink Floyd's The Wall. The picture evokes a feeling of sorrow for the young Frank McCourt, in a tale that never has any definite answers, it just leaves them open. The acting is superb, mainly by Emily Watson as the loving mother Angela McCout and Robert carlyle who gives his best performance since Trainspotting here as the father with almost three different personalities. We watch as young Frank goes through three periods of his life in the poverish Ireland and thankfully in the end everything turns out OK. This makes the film even better. Along with a gentle and moving score (by oscar winner John Williams),this film is very provocative, touching and dramatic. Well done.

This is based on the memoirs of Frank McCourt. It's 1935 Brooklyn. Frank is five years old living in cram quarters with his parents Malachy (Robert Carlyle) and Angela McCourt (Emily Watson),and several siblings. His newborn sister dies leaving Angela exhausted. The family does the unusual and goes back to Ireland. Soon his brother Oliver is dead. The drunken Malachy cannot keep a job and drinks all the money away. Angela has to plead for charity and the family lives in squalor. Malachy disappears going to England. They are forced out of their home to live with Angela's cousin who eventually forces Angela into a sexual relationship and her life is all ashes. Frank runs away and is taken in by supportive childless couple Aunt Aggie and Uncle Pa. He gets a job delivering posts and loses his virginity to sickly customer Theresa Carmody. After Theresa's death, he takes on a job writing threatening letters for moneylender Mrs. Finucane. He works, saves, and steals to pay for passage back to his birthplace America.

It's slow grinding poverty in the first half of the movie. Carlyle and Watson deliver compelling performances but young Frank has little to do. I have not read the book and it's hard to tell what to cut out of it for the movie. That is always the eternal question. A movie is not a book and adaptation is a tricky science. This never feels more than a highlight reel for the book. Michael Legge as the teen Frank has some juicier scenes than the younger Franks. The narrations help a bit but there is a missing charm or poignancy. Adapting the novel into a movie may not be an easy task.

When Frank McCourt's autobiography "Angela's Ashes" was published, we were all quite impressed with it, specifically how McCourt was able to write about each stage of his life as though he was still the age portrayed. Obviously, the movie wasn't able to do this. But otherwise, the movie was a worthy effort, showing the poverty in Limerick and how the father (Robert Carlyle) spent his earned money on alcohol, and the mother (Emily Watson) felt like she couldn't do anything about it. An interesting device that the movie does use is that the soundtrack is mostly American jazz (which Frank probably heard a lot on the radio) rather than Irish jigs.

So, the book is better - especially how he indicts the Catholic Church for keeping his family in poverty - but the movie is passable. Alan Parker has maintained a pretty good track record.