Angela
This eerily beautiful film stars Miranda Stuart Rhyne as Angela, a young girl trying to cope with her family's falling apart. Her mother (Anna Thomson) has drastic mood shifts that bring her from manic happiness to utter misery. Her father (John Ventimiglia) tries to hold everyone together, but Mae's vacillations are becoming more than he can manage. Adrift, Angela and her little sister concoct magical rituals and have visions of fallen angels and the Virgin Mary; reading signs in the way a towel falls off a chair or a tool falls off a truck, they set off to find their way to heaven.Angelasucceeds because of writer-director Rebecca Miller's keen understanding of childhood, when imagination and reality are fluid and fantasies can exert a potent influence over a child's life. An unsettling and affecting movie, with an excellent performance by Rhyne.--Bret Fetzer