Falling Angels (film)

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 1960s, 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.

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 selfbuilt backyard bomb shelter, for practice. Jim works as a usedcar 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 everpresent 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 fathers 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, sweetlooking 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 mans twin brother, and Sandy learning t

Source: Wikipedia