Mark of an Angel

June. 13,2008      
Rating:
6.7
Trailer Synopsis Cast

Elsa Valentin is in the middle of a brutal divorce and custody battle when she is struck by the appearance of a pretty young girl named Lola (Héloïse Cunin). Her interest in the child grows to an obsession, and she finds any possible excuse to be near her. When Lola's mother, Claire, grows unnerved by all this, Elsa admits she believes Lola is her daughter.

Catherine Frot as  Elsa Valentin
Sandrine Bonnaire as  Claire Vigneaux
Wladimir Yordanoff as  Bernard Vigneaux
Antoine Chappey as  Antoine
Michel Aumont as  Alain Valentin
Michèle Moretti as  Colette
Sophie Quinton as  Laurence
Zacharie Chasseriaud as  Jérémy
Mehdi Nebbou as  Le policier
Marie-Julie Baup as  L'infirmière

Reviews

Glimmerubro
2008/06/13

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

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Catangro
2008/06/14

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

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Rosie Searle
2008/06/15

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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Marva
2008/06/16

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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Armand
2008/06/17

a girl. two women. a past episode. a recollection. and the truth. nothing else. a sensitive story about feelings, past and accident. and a beautiful cast.nothing else. the tale is not new. but it is delicate and profound. the steps of search of truth is a precise work. and the final answer is like rain drops - clear, honest, dramatic. so, out of performance is the science to present a form of pain with many faces. and the beauty of a verdict. the fall of masks. the power of words. the force of gestures. the life as hided flower of choices and needs. a film like a moral lesson or like morning wind. because its object is silence as cloth of cry.or only walk of a mother and her daughter.

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bob_meg
2008/06/18

It's rare that you go into a movie aware of a sort-of familiar story (and this one, though true, is up with the Top 10 Lifetime plots), and a sort-of familiar genre and come out of the theater dazed at the uniquely transfixing experience you just had. Angel of Mine is one of those experiences.I really admired the way this film takes you down certain familiar paths (is it going to be a tearjerker like "The Notebook", a psycho-stalker like "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle") and then detours you completely. No, Angel of Mine is not in the same kind of "anything for a cheap rise" league.Catherine Frot and Sandrine Bonnair are always stunning but they work a kind of intuitive magic here. Indeed, the most electrifying moments between the two occur when they're being silent together.The photography is elegiac, the score poignant, the direction lucid and transparent.Get it out on Region 1 DVD folks....more people need to see this!

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Mick-Jordan
2008/06/19

I often tell people that if they want to see a film – avoid the trailer. In the case of 'Mark of an Angel' I'd tell them to avoid the poster. While so many trailers these days seem to be potted synopses of the whole film ('Public Enemies' being a massive case in point) the tag-line of this film may give a way a crucial plot element of the story. Which would be a pity as this is a really first-class film. Class being the operative word given the acting talent on show here.Sandrine Bonnaire can do no wrong (unless it's required of her) and Catherine Frot has long since masked the art of barely suppressed tension and panic. Here she really brings it to the fore as she stars as Elsa, a woman with a long history of depression who develops a fascination with a seven year old girl she sees at a birthday party when she comes to collect her son. Determined to find out more about the girl she uses her son as a way in to the family ensuring that he befriends the girl's brother so that she can then befriend the girl's mother Claire (Bonnaire). She uses her son more and more in her pursuit of this obsession telling her employees that he is seriously ill so that she can run off and resume her stalking. She tells her parents she is dating so that they will baby-sit and she can do the same thing. At first Claire doesn't suspect anything but gradually notices that Elsa is paying too much attention to Lola – the girl in question. Meanwhile we are starting to realise why. Throughout the film you are not so much on the edge of your seat as pressed back into it. The tension as you wait desperately for Elsa to be found out is excruciating and when one particularly dramatic scene ends with what would normally be seen as the cop-out of Elsa suddenly waking up – you are just hugely relieved – they haven't caught her yet. And that's the thing – your sympathy is completely with Elsa, you cringe as she keeps accidentally turning up at every event involving Lola and her mother and you shudder as you watch this woman falling slowly apart. Frot really lays it on in this but Sandrine Bonnaire certainly holds her own when it comes her turn to convey the creeping (and increasing ) fear of this woman that is taking hold of her. There is one scene which is pure Hitchcock and clearly meant to be. Lola is performing in a ballet watched by her parents and brother in the audience. Claire notices her looking offstage to the wings a lot and when she turns herself she catches a glimpse of someone there. Is it Elsa? She can't be sure and she keeps straining between dancers to see but only gets the briefest of fleeting glances. It's an incredibly tense sequence of "Is it her?"/ "Is it not her?" made all the more so by the fact that we know – it is. Add to that the fact that the ballet the girls are dancing to is a musical simulation of a clock – ("Tick Tock" "Tick Tock") - and you're now pressed back into the seat behind you. This really is great stuff.

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GUENOT PHILIPPE
2008/06/20

It seems that this story is based on actual events.Well, see for yourself...The yarn about a woman in her late thirties - Catherine Frot - who lives with her son and her next to be ex husband...During the birthday party of her son's school mate, with of course many children there, she notices the presence of a little seven old girl. And she decides to follow her, discover where she comes from...During the first part of the movie, she approaches the girl's mother - Sandrine Bonnaire, and her behavior seems to be more and more weird about it. You, in the audience, wonder why all this...Only near the ending - BEWARE, SPOILER !!! - you discover that the little girl is Catherine Frot's lost child, in a burning, when she was still a three days old baby!!! Of course, there is a hard struggle between the two women. Frot accuses Bonnaire to have stolen her daughter during the fire, seven years earlier.THE thing that you, spectator, wonder is :HOW THE HELL DID SHE DO TO RECOGNIZE HER LITTLE GIRL SEVEN YEARS AFTER SHE WAS ONLY A SEVERAL DAYS BABY ?!!!It's so big, so large, that you could easily let a truck pass through.But the acting of the two women is absolutely outstanding. It's worth seeing it for that reason.

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