The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Blistering performances.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Snow Angels is perhaps one of the most difficult films I have ever watched. This is almost a masterpiece that portrays realistic human emotions. Essentially this is a film that explores the ups and downs of human life and how people deal with them. This dialog-based film has some powerful but key moments that show the audience this. These scenes are genuinely emotional and may induce a tear or two. Difficult as it may be to watch, this film is a plus of cinema.David Gordon Green's film explores several characters and their relationships with each other. We see a shy high school kid, his old babysitter, and her estranged husband and how their lives interconnect with each other.The acting is nearly flawless. Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell deliver some of their finest and perhaps career-defining performances yet. Beckinsale proves that she does not have to be a vampire in the Underworld films to find out she can take these kind of dramatic roles just fine. She does have the emotional depth for these parts. We all know Sam Rockwell is a great actor and this is one of his craziest, but strongest roles.Overall, this is the small-budget masterpiece you'd come to expect. David Gordon Green has a way with giving his characters an emotional core. You come to sympathize for them no matter their flaws. This is just outstanding art that explores characterization to the deepest. With a strong script and engaging story, this is a film every film geek should watch. I rate this film 9/10.

"Snow Angels" starts off as a fairly conventional, angst-ridden indie drama about life in an American small town, but the movie turns into a profoundly moving work after an unexpected tragedy strikes the community.Director David Gordon Green's screenplay (co-written by Stewart O'Nan) focuses on two disintegrating marriages - one belonging to Annie and Glen Marchand, and the other to Louise and Arthur Parkinson - and the effect the breakups are having on the children and extended families. The people in both groups already seem profoundly unhappy with their lives, but when an unspeakable disaster occurs, things go from bad to worse for all concerned."Snow Angels" features insightful writing, sensitive direction and a profound sense of place and season (it takes place in the deep, dark days of a Midwestern winter, though the film itself was filmed in Nova Scotia). It's not an easy movie to watch at times - its emotions wrenching and its characters' weaknesses all too human and recognizable – but excellent performances by Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, Michael Angarano, Jeanetta Arnette, Deborah Allen and Griffin Dunne, among others, make it worthwhile viewing.

Just finished watching this film,and came away feeling sad but happy at the same time. Sam Rockwell has become one of my favorite actors of late, and was at his best again in this small town family drama. This film made me sad as it reminded me of the sad things that had happened in my life, loss of love, family, friends and a whole lot of other things I had sort of shoved away, as at the time it was just to hard to deal with.But as much as this film has no real happy ending, it made me smile as my life had moved on to a better place, and it was great to see a solid movie based on human feelings, not the crap that seems to have come out of Hollywood for some years.8 out of 10

The location looks like it could be any Midwest town with a medium sized high school. It is winter, there is snow on the ground, the band is practicing outside for the halftime show of the next football game. We hear what sounds like a gunshot, we don't know from where. The students hear it too. Is it a school shooting?Then the movie flashes back a couple of weeks and is told in a linear manner, up and then past that point where we hear a shot. The first thing we figure out is there don't seem to be any "faithful" couples. At least we don't see them. The ones we see are fooling around with spouses of friends.I suppose the best summary is a "slice of life" in a small community, and for the high school kids it is part of their coming of age. Kate Beckinsale is Annie Marchand, she works in a restaurant and is separated from her husband. They have a small daughter. It seems he has had some emotional issues, received treatment, but still behaves like the kind of guy most people don't want to be around. He is a social misfit, often saying or doing exactly what shouldn't be said or done in the situation. Meanwhile Annie is secretly carrying on with a married man, while her husband seeks to reunite the family.Sam Rockwell is the husband, Glenn Marchand, and he plays the part very well. Separate from all this another family is having domestic problems. Michael Angarano (of 'Sky High' fame) is teenager Arthur Parkinson. He plays trombone, not very well, in the high school band. Seems his mom and dad aren't getting along very well, dad leaves home for a while. Meanwhile Arthur gets to be friends with a new girl at school, Olivia Thirlby as Lila Raybern, and they become young lovers. Interesting dynamic, when his mother one morning realizes he and his girl had spent a night together, she doesn't scold him at all, in fact expresses some amount of envy that he is getting some and she isn't.Anyway, as well-made and as well-acted as this movie is, when it was over I didn't feel good. I had just witnessed train wrecks where no one comes out of it in good shape. Had I known what all was going to transpire I would not have taken the time to see it. Not my kind of "entertainment", but I grant that some viewers will like it a lot.MAJOR SPOILERS: As Annie and Glenn are jockeying for position in the strained relationship, Annie wakes up from an unplanned afternoon nap and finds the small daughter missing. The town has everyone, even early dismissed school kids, begin looking for her in a 4-mile radius. Arthur, who as a kid had Annie as a babysitter, found the girl, dead at the edge of a frozen pond. This of course further strained relationships and Glenn went to Annie's house with a shotgun and shells, he waited for her, shot and killed her. Later, as he was driving away in his truck and realizing his life was essentially over, stopped and shot himself through the mouth and brain with piston. As the movie ends we see everyone else in the town just going on with their lives.