Summon up any number of recent-ish films from the dying-old-ladies-with-a-mysterious-past (DOLWAMP) genre—A Trip To Bountiful, Fried Green Tomatoes, Driving Miss Daisy, Away From Her, The Notebook, Evening—and you’ll know exactly what to expect from The Stone Angel… and yet I think you won’t.

The film certainly starts out on familiar enough ground.  Ellen Burstyn plays Hagar Shipley, nee Currie, a bitter old woman who is dependent on the grudging good will of her son Marvin and his wife… only things aren’t going so well for the couple, their business, or their relationship with Mom.  So Marvin and Doris surreptitiously arrange for Hagar to visit a retirement home, and Hagar is none too pleased.  Soon she manages to “escape” on a trip to revisit the scene of a pleasant memory; and with the aid of copious flashback sequences, we meet Hagar at various stages of her life, and learn from whence her bitterness comes.

Yes, that sounds trite enough—and to be honest, we’ve seen the formula worked with more energy than is on display here, particularly in The Notebook, which featured some serious on-screen chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.  But what The Stone Angel lacks in energy and spark, it more than makes up for with originality—and with some spiritual depth.

On the originality front, The Stone Angel is not primarily concerned with romance, though that is certainly prominently (and earthily) featured.  No, this story is more concerned about the relationships of fathers and daughters, of mothers and sons—and with expectations, favoritism, and disappointment.  Hagar Currie, you see, is the pride and favored child of grocer Jason Currie, the most respected man in town and its figurative “founder.”  But she’s also headstrong, and ends up falling for the town’s least respected man: Bram Shipley, a no-account second-generation horse rancher.  Conflict number one.

Conflict number two arises between Hagar and her sons.  As with the previous generation, Hagar decides who the “real Currie” of the two is, and communicates both verbally and non-verbally who the “real Shipley” is.  By the time Hagar heads off on her hunt for redemption, there are a lot of burned bridges to rebuild—and many that are far beyond repair.

It helps that the story is set in a pre-World War II Manitoba farm belt that feels a lot like Texas—but isn’t—and that many of the story’s characters (oddly enough) have a fascination for mortuaries, undertakers, corpses, and cemeteries… including the one with that titular Stone Angel, the marker over the Currie family plot.  It’s an odd choice carried over from the novel that the film is based upon, but it works—after you warm up to it, and after you get past all the DOLWAMP clichés.

Certainly, the vivaciousness and seriousness of newcomer Christine Horne’s performance as the younger Hagar helps tremendously, as does a moving supporting turn by veteran Dylan Baker as Marvin.  Initially offputting, Burstyn’s performance is warmed by the feelings we develop for her younger self and her family.

But the real depth and the real surprise of this film is in its thematic development.  As you may recall, the biblical Hagar was the disfavored concubine of Abraham, the maidservant who bore Abraham’s first—and illegitimate—son, Ishmael.  When the story doesn’t seem to initially do much with that symbolism, it’s easy to get lost in the clichés and Hagar’s lust and think the film isn’t going anywhere very complicated.  But as we learn more about Jason Currie, about Hagar’s son John, and about two Currie legacies, it’s obvious that this tale has an awful lot of theological depth on its mind.

This is no simple tale of familial favoritism: it’s truly an epic tale of biblical proportions, offering insight into the kinds of rifts that tear nations apart even after five thousand years—and into the kind of spiritual healing that’s free for the taking, if only we can get past the stammering impotence of God’s servants long enough to hear the haunting beauty that calls to us through the Gospel.

One of the prophetic voices of the Old Testament promised that the Messiah would turn hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.  If you let it, The Stone Angel might just do for you what very real, flesh-and-blood, pot-smoking and Bible-wielding angels manage to do for Hagar.

With The Stone Angel, director Kari Skogland has crafted a very mature and moving work of art—not a great film by any means, but a strong enough to warrant a trip to the theater in a summer dominated by cinematic stories that way overwork their budgets. She really knows what she’s doing behind the camera, and she does it well.

The Stone Angel is rated R for “some sexuality and brief language.”  I’m not sure why this film warranted an R while The Notebook was rated PG-13.  The sexuality here is perhaps a bit more unvarnished; but I found the sexuality of The Notebook more, well, sexual.  In any event, this is not a film for kids—probably not even for teenagers.  The lessons to be learned here—and the real entertainment to be had—are for adults.

Courtesy of a local publicist Greg viewed a promotional screener of The Stone Angel.