Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Very Annie-Mary (2000)

Director: Sara Sugarman

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Welsh writer/director Sugarman's second feature is an uneven, sometimes awkward but ultimately winning parable about female emancipation and small town claustrophobia. It's set in the Valleys, in the former mining community of Ogw, and Sugarman revels in its looped cadence. Here Annie-Mary (Griffiths) cooks and cleans for her da, Jack Pugh (Pryce), the town baker. Pugh is loved for his wonderful tenor voice, but he's a tyrannical father who treats his daughter more like a maid than his own flesh and blood. Very broad, this opening, with Annie-Mary apparently still a teenager at heart, her development forestalled by the death of her mam just as she was on the point of taking up a singing scholarship in Milan. Sugarman finds more emotional focus when Pugh suffers a stroke but selfishly refuses to die. So the cruel indignities add up. It's only when she joins some local lassies for a talent contest that Annie-Mary gets a chance to prove herself. Griffiths throws herself into this ugly duckling role with characteristic aplomb: hair in buns, dressed in hand-me-downs, but with those beseeching eyes - it's as if this time she gets to play Hilary and Jackie.

Author: TCh 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Sara Sugarman

Producer: Graham Broadbent, Damian Jones

Cast: Rachel Griffiths, Jonathan Pryce, Ioan Gruffudd, Matthew Rhys, Kenneth Griffith, Ruth Madoc, Grafton Radcliffe full cast

Duration: 104 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.