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A RUMOR OF ANGELS Send This Review to a Friend
After sitting through the supposedly uplifting "A Rumor of Angels" one might long for the devil. Despite a good cast that includes the ever-effective Vanessa Redgrave, the film is a sticky, sappy drama that exalts faith in the form of conversing with deceased loved ones. Not through mediums, but via Morse code no less. It isn't important if the messages really are being sent. The important thing is to believe. Count me out.
James (Trevor Morgan), a 12-year-old lad is in pain because he watched his mother's death in an auto accident and thinks he bears responsibility. He is unhappy and surly. He deeply resents his stepmother (Catherine McCormack) and also his father (Ray Liotta), who is away often from their home in a coastal village in Maine.
Life takes a turn for James when strange circumstances lead to his striking up a friendship with the demanding but warm-hearted, reclusive Maddy (Redgrave), who is still grieving over the wartime loss of her soldier son. She has been able to cope by supposedly communicating with him, and she fills James's brain with stories about such contact. The implication: if you have enough faith it will work for you.
James's father and stepmother want this to stop and forbid him to see Maddy, but, as he sees it, the friendship has become the only meaningful part of his life. By now the film, directed by Peter O'Fallon, who co-wrote the screenplay with James Eric and Jamie Horton based on the book "Thy Son Liveth" by Grace Duffie Boylan, is so filled with nonsense that during a storm it may divert you to ponder whether the rain will wash away what seems to be Liotta's excessive eye makeup.
Redgrave gives a distinctive, feisty performance and young Trevor Morgan does very well as James. But if I could send you a message from beyond the grave it certainly wouldn't be head for this movie. A CineTel Films and Motion Picture Corporation of America release.
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