Ordinary Angels is a very ordinary film in many ways. It’s familiar and comforting and goes exactly where you probably expect it to go. The fact that it’s based on a true story and features representations of real people is almost immaterial. These are screen archetypes doing what screen archetypes do.
On one side a stoic, manly, buttoned-down dad who’s lost his wife and is now in trouble again, with a sick daughter whose medical treatment is going to bleed him dry. On the other one of those folksy, Southern women whose university-of-life smarts can open doors that otherwise remain closed.
Alan Ritchson plays Ed, a blue-collar guy who straps on a utility belt to go to work but is now up against something he can’t fix with the tools in his armoury. Wife dead, daughter sick, he cannot work hard enough to pay for the liver transplant his daughter needs. Hilary Swank plays Sharon, the force-of-nature hairdresser and alcoholic party animal who latches on to Ed and family and decides to raise money for the little girl. That’s the story. Of course there are frictions on both sides – Ed is a self-help bootstraps guy who resents this total stranger just entering his life; Sharon is genuinely touched by the plight of the little girl, but is also using Ed and family as a “purpose” in life to help her beat the bottle.
If you don’t know Ritchson, he screen-tested for the role of Thor some years back and looking at him you can believe it. He’s Chris Hemsworth crossed with a young Nick Nolte. Swank needs no introduction, but she has been off the screen for three years, caring for her mortally sick father.
So her own experience with serious illness may inform her performance, which is bright and thoughtful and battles against the gravitational pull of the archetype.
As said, true story. There are an Ed and a Sharon, and she did insert herself into his life and become a one-woman fundraiser for Ed’s daughter Michelle. And news footage over the end credits confirms that the big finale really did happen in that improbable only-in-Hollywood way. During the Arctic weather of the North American Cold Wave of 1994, it looked like Michelle was going to be denied her last chance at life, thanks to huge dumps of snow closing all the roads to the hospital where a donor liver awaited. But a news item on local TV mobilised local residents, who came out with shovels en masse to clear the snow on the parking lot of a local church so a helicopter (which Sharon had organised) could land and then whisk Michelle and Ed off to hospital.
A faith-based film, says Wikipedia. Couldn’t see it myself. And for the hypoallergenic, be assured God doesn’t loom large, though people in this community do go to church. Religion features as part of the furniture of normal life, much as Sharon’s hairdressing salon does. So approach without fear if that sort of thing sets you on edge.
Director Jon Gunn, who does have a few faith-based movies on his CV, doesn’t let his film wallow but keeps the pace up, clearly aware that familiar material needs brisk treatment. He gets good performances out of his cast, particularly supporting roles – Nancy Travis as Ed’s mother, Tamala Jones as Sharon’s confidante friend and business partner, Emily Mitchell and Skywalker Hughes as Michelle and her older sister. Gunn is good at the stirring emotional stuff. You might well up.
But really it’s all on Swank and Ritchson, who are an effective pairing, and play a cute game of piggy in the middle with material that could easily get romantic. Because widowed guy and single gal equals obvious romance in movies like this, doesn’t it? Will they/won’t they?
Ordinary Angels – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2024
