# Angel (2007 film)
**Angel** is a 2007 period drama directed by [François Ozon](https://www.edgepedia.org/francois-ozon), adapted from [Elizabeth Taylor](https://www.edgepedia.org/elizabeth-taylor)'s 1957 novel of the same name, about the rise and fall of a self-deluded romantic novelist in Edwardian England.[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/64533/rl/1/) It was a French, Belgian, and British co-production, filmed in English, and it closed the official competition of the 57th [Berlin International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-international-film-festival) in February 2007.[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/64533/rl/1/) • [2](https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/73357/rl/1/) Romola Garai stars as Angel Deverell, with Sam Neill, Charlotte Rampling, Lucy Russell, and Michael Fassbender in supporting roles.[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/64533/rl/1/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and writers | François Ozon; screenplay by Ozon with dialogue by Ozon and Martin Crimp, based on Elizabeth Taylor's 1957 novel[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/64533/rl/1/) • [3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783767/fullcredits/) |
| Cast | Romola Garai (Angel Deverell), Sam Neill (Théo), Charlotte Rampling (Hermione), Lucy Russell (Nora), Michael Fassbender (Esmé)[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783767/fullcredits/) |
| Countries and year | France, Belgium, United Kingdom, 2007[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/64533/rl/1/) |
| Running time | 134 minutes[4](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/angel) |
| Release | France and Belgium 14 March 2007; Netherlands 26 April 2007; Germany 9 August 2007; United Kingdom 29 August 2008[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/64533/rl/1/) |
| Festival | Closing film in official competition, 57th Berlin International Film Festival, 2007[2](https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/73357/rl/1/) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Denis Lenoir; editing Muriel Breton; production design Katia Wyszkop; costumes Pascaline Chavanne; music Philippe Rombi[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/64533/rl/1/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story is set in England at the turn of the twentieth century. Angel Deverell, the daughter of a widowed grocer, comes of age in Edwardian Cheshire convinced she will be a great writer.[4](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/angel) • [5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783767/plotsummary/) A London publisher, Théo ([Sam Neill](https://www.edgepedia.org/sam-neill)), takes a chance on her unproven first novel and turns her overwrought romances into bestsellers, making her a celebrity and carrying her into the upper reaches of English society.[4](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/angel) • [6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1201467-angel) With her royalties she buys Paradise House, the grand estate she had admired from outside since girlhood.[4](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/angel) • [2](https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/73357/rl/1/)
Angel pursues and marries Esmé ([Michael Fassbender](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-fassbender)), a painter of dark temperament from the local aristocracy who becomes dependent on her money, and hires his sister Nora (Lucy Russell), who quietly loves her, as a personal assistant.[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783767/plotsummary/) • [6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1201467-angel) Grandly self-centered, Angel colors her world as if it were one of her own novels, refusing to acknowledge anything that contradicts the fiction she has built.[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783767/plotsummary/) The outbreak of the First World War brings realities her will cannot bend, and her marriage, career, and invented life come apart.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1201467-angel) • [7](https://www.screendaily.com/angel/4031064.article?storyCode=4031064) Cineuropa's festival report described the film as "a veritable fairytale in reverse," in which the heroine succeeds from the start and only later, in her gothic manor, realizes too late that her life has been a pipe dream; the reviewer noted that this final awakening was a detail Ozon added and is not in Taylor's novel.[2](https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/73357/rl/1/)
## Source and characters
Ozon read Taylor's novel in one sitting and asked his producers to buy the rights, seeing in it the basis for an epic in the tradition of the 1930s and 1940s melodramas, recounting the rise and fall of a flamboyant character.[8](https://www.londonnet.co.uk/cinema/cinema-interviews/angel-francois-ozon/) He judged the story too English to transpose to France.[8](https://www.londonnet.co.uk/cinema/cinema-interviews/angel-francois-ozon/) In interviews he said the character of Angel was inspired by Marie Corelli, a contemporary of [Oscar Wilde](https://www.edgepedia.org/oscar-wilde) and [Queen Victoria](https://www.edgepedia.org/queen-victoria)'s favorite writer, one of the first authors to become a bestselling star and since largely forgotten.[8](https://www.londonnet.co.uk/cinema/cinema-interviews/angel-francois-ozon/) What drew him to the book, he told Cineuropa, was Angel herself, a female writer so sure of herself that after realizing all her dreams she finds herself confronted with reality; he called her, despite appearances, a very sad character who in the end realizes she has been deceiving herself.[9](https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/74568/)
## Production and style
Angel was Ozon's first period costume film and his first made entirely in English; his earlier *Swimming Pool* (2003) had been only partly in English.[9](https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/74568/) • [10](https://www.scmp.com/article/633141/angel-falls-earth) It was his ninth feature, released in France on 161 screens.[11](https://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/autant-en-emporte-ozon-14-03-2007-2007848721.php)
**Visual design.** Ozon described a deliberate split in the film's look: the early scenes in Angel's home town of Norley, with its red-brick streets and her mother's grocery shop, are played for realism, while once Angel installs herself at Paradise House the realism disappears and the production was free to indulge the imaginary world of the heroine, sharing what he called her little girl's bad taste, a comparison he drew to the castles of [Ludwig II of Bavaria](https://www.edgepedia.org/ludwig-ii-of-bavaria).[12](https://medias.unifrance.org/medias/16/100/25616/presse/angel-presskit-french.pdf) He said he took liberties with his English advisers' recommendations on period accuracy, filming, for example, an open coffin at Esmé's funeral, a Mediterranean custom he called unthinkable in an English Protestant church, because the scene is Angel's own staging of herself.[12](https://medias.unifrance.org/medias/16/100/25616/presse/angel-presskit-french.pdf) Reviewers noted deliberate anachronisms, including book-promotion and book-signing sequences and an Edwardian theater audience giving Angel a modern standing ovation.[13](https://atouchoffilm.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/angel-2007/)
The film was produced by Fidélité Films, Poisson Rouge Pictures, Scope Pictures, and Foz/Virtual Film, with backing from France 2 Cinéma and the MEDIA Programme, and sold internationally by Celluloid Dreams.[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/64533/rl/1/) Wild Bunch Distribution handled the French theatrical release.[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/64533/rl/1/)
## Reception
Critical response was sharply divided. In the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw gave the film 1 out of 5 and called Ozon's English-language debut a wasted opportunity, while Jason Solomons made it his film of the week, calling it funny, stylish, beguiling, and touching through a great central performance.[14](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/121084/angel) Jonathan Romney in Screen described a determinedly old-fashioned English costume melodrama of the sort that once would have been a vehicle for [Bette Davis](https://www.edgepedia.org/bette-davis), praising Garai's and Ozon's chutzpah while judging that neither could quite sustain the tone over the overstretched running time.[7](https://www.screendaily.com/angel/4031064.article?storyCode=4031064) On Rotten Tomatoes the film held a 50% critics' score from 22 reviews and a 32% audience score.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1201467-angel)
**Commercial performance.** The film underperformed in France. Ozon told the [South China Morning Post](https://www.edgepedia.org/south-china-morning-post) that many people did not get the film, arguing that audiences no longer like to be disturbed and want a story that is easy to watch, while his film leaves viewers unsure whether to laugh or cry.[10](https://www.scmp.com/article/633141/angel-falls-earth) The same article characterized the result as an unconventional period drama inspired by everything from [Douglas Sirk](https://www.edgepedia.org/douglas-sirk) to [Barbara Cartland](https://www.edgepedia.org/barbara-cartland), either a pantomime or a satire on heritage cinema depending on the viewer.[10](https://www.scmp.com/article/633141/angel-falls-earth) Later assessments have been warmer in places: the A.V. Club's 2011 DVD review gave it a B+ and compared its color, period decadence, and florid melodrama to a Selznick film of the 1930s or 1940s, with the twist that the plucky ingénue is a garish monster consumed by egomania.[15](https://www.avclub.com/angel-1798166904)
## References
1. [Angel, film profile, Cineuropa](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/64533/rl/1/)
2. [Bénédicte Prot, "Angel: A fairytale in reverse," Cineuropa, 17 February 2007](https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/73357/rl/1/)
3. [Angel (2007), Full cast & crew, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783767/fullcredits/)
4. [Angel, British Council UK Films Database](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/angel)
5. [Angel (2007), Plot, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783767/plotsummary/)
6. [Angel, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1201467-angel)
7. [Jonathan Romney, "Angel," Screen Daily, 17 February 2007](https://www.screendaily.com/angel/4031064.article?storyCode=4031064)
8. [Interview with François Ozon, LondonNet, 22 August 2008](https://www.londonnet.co.uk/cinema/cinema-interviews/angel-francois-ozon/)
9. [Vitor Pinto, "Notes on a paradise lost," Cineuropa interview with François Ozon, 12 March 2007](https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/74568/)
10. [James Mottram, "Angel falls to Earth," South China Morning Post, 10 April 2008](https://www.scmp.com/article/633141/angel-falls-earth)
11. [Pierre Vavasseur, "Autant en emporte Ozon," Le Parisien, 14 March 2007](https://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/autant-en-emporte-ozon-14-03-2007-2007848721.php)
12. [Angel press kit, Unifrance (interview with François Ozon)](https://medias.unifrance.org/medias/16/100/25616/presse/angel-presskit-french.pdf)
13. ["Angel (2007)," A Touch of Film, 11 March 2015](https://atouchoffilm.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/angel-2007/)
14. [Angel, film page and reviews, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/121084/angel)
15. [Scott Tobias, "Angel," The A.V. Club, 12 January 2011](https://www.avclub.com/angel-1798166904)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2000s › Biographical and historical drama films 2000s › Released 2006 to 2009*
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