Main Cast: Dermot Mulroney, Lili Taylor, Sam Shepard, Valerie Perrine, Sheila McCarthy, Bill Pullman
Release Year: 1991
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
This contemporary western stars Dermot Mulroney as a Montana teenager whose sanity is being eroded by his parent's domestic squabbles. Linking up with Lili Taylor, a Wyoming-bound transient with a checkered history, Mulroney embarks upon an odyssey of self-discovery. Unfortunately, he persists in crossing the paths of people even more emotionally disturbed than his mother and father. Adapted by Richard Ford from two of his short stories, Bright Angel is a film of short, pithy vignettes, handled with subtlety and sensitivity-at least until the unexpectedly brutal finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
With an outstanding pedigree -- acclaimed fiction writer Richard Ford adapts two of his stories for an outstanding cast of solid performers -- Bright Angel turns out to be a mild disappointment. Like Thomas McGuane and Jim Harrison, Ford loves to people the broad expanses of the West with damaged relationships and reckless behavior. Ford's style is to have his characters speak in semi-articulate aphorisms ("Being with is like being alone," says one man to a woman). In McGuane's best screen work, the wry comedy Rancho Deluxe, this kind of talk is endearingly wacky, but here, Ford can't make it work to illustrate his themes of dislocation and illusion. Ford's characters seem to be talking at rather than with each other, and to little effect. Of the performers, Dermot Mulroney, as the 18-year-old George, comes off best, but unfortunately, Lili Taylor, usually as reliable as the sunrise, affects a breathy delivery and her wayward Lucy remains opaque throughout the story. When she says to George, "Tell me something I might not know," and he replies, "I wish I could do that," you can feel the film slipping away. Shooting mostly around Billings, MT, cinematographer Elliot Davis captures the beauty of rolling fields and the sheltering sky, as well as the brutish imposition of oil wells and refineries on the landscape. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Burt Young - Art Falcone; Mary Kay Place - Judy; Kevin Tighe - Man; Delroy Lindo - Harley; Benjamin Bratt - Claude; Alex Bulltail - Sherman; Tom Connelly - 1st Switchman; Lyle N. Cusson - Drunk; Tom Dixon - Meat Locker Owner; Irving Jefferson - Boxing Indian; Tyde Kierney - Detective; Ed Kraft - 2nd Switchman; Fred Oakland - Greyhound Ticket Agent; Dan Old Elk - Reservation Policeman; Julia Omvig - Barmaid; Will Patton - Woody; Joyce Rogers - Proprietress; Myrna Wilken - Barmaid; Jacqueline R. Ziegler - Jail Deputy
Credit
Karen Patch - Costume Designer, Michael Fields - Director, Clement Barclay - Editor, Melody London - Editor, John Daly - Executive Producer, Derek Gibson - Executive Producer, Christopher Young - Composer (Music Score), Marcia Hinds-Johnson - Production Designer, Elliot Davis - Cinematographer, Sue Baden-Powell - Producer, Robert MacLean - Producer, Stuart Regen - Producer, Paige Simpson - Producer, Richard Ford - Screenwriter
