Angela's Ashes

Paramount Pictures | Release Date: December 22, 1999

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

54	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews

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Mixed:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Steve Davis

For those who adore McCourt's work, Angela's Ashes will most likely disappoint; for those unfamiliar with this inspiring chronicle of a survivor, it will neither impress nor dishearten to any degree. Read full review

Ann Hornaday

As with so many recent literary adaptations, it was the writing that was the art, not its infrastructure of plot and character.

Jay Carr

While the film dutifully reproduces many incidents from the book, it lacks the spirit and vitality of its source. And - no small problem - it lacks McCourt's voice knitting the vignettes together. Read full review

Lawrence Toppman

It really gets gloomy. Read full review

Lisa Alspector

If misery were inherently interesting, this adaptation starring Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle as a couple plagued by alcoholism and child mortality might be too. Read full review

Roger Ebert

What is wonderful about Angela's Ashes is Emily Watson's performance, and the other roles that are convincingly cast. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

Haunts the conscience, troubles the spirit.

David Sterritt

The end result smacks more of Hollywood melodrama than true compassion for the suffering poor. Read full review

Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf

A sharp and pungent distillation of the book. However, as far as the theme of childhood under duress goes, I found "My Life as a Dog" or the stridently Irish "Into the West" to be significantly more fulfilling. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

Seems populated yet uninhabited; the only real star is the gloom. Read full review

Film.comPeter Brunette

Never more than a dull, paint-by-numbers, overly literal transcription of the book. Read full review

Ella Taylor

140 minutes of flat vignette, as dreary and uninvolving as the driving rain that never lets up on the benighted streets of Limerick. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

If this beautifully made if flawed film sends people back to his book, it will have done good work for sure. Read full review

Curtis Morgan

Something of Angela's Ashes does gets lost in translation -- mainly, its fiercely funny voice.

Mr. ShowbizCody Clark

If Parker had aimed more at capturing the author's unique voice, and worried less about getting the details right, his movie might have been extraordinary as well.

Jack Mathews

The question is not whether the movie exactly duplicates the experience of the book, but whether the movie stands on its own. Angela's Ashes clearly does. Read full review

Jonathan Foreman

Lacks the humor and charm that fills the book and makes it so much more than a catalog of suffering.

David Ansen

As well-crafted and sensitive as it is, the movie remains one step removed from inspiration. Read full review

Desmond Ryan

Parker has honored the core of the work and in the process turned a great memoir into a memorable movie.

Shawn Levy

At times an uneasy mix of cold-eyed neorealism and soft-headed sentimentality, but after its initial struggles it presents itself as a moving film, made with loving craft, a painterly eye and luscious language.