With each picture since his 2000 debut George Washington, David Gordon Green has taken at least a little step backward. That gradual regression becomes a full-fledged precipitous decline with Snow Angels, a movie in which the director (working from a novel by Stewart O'Nan) flails about in hunting of poetry, and comes up with only trivial stylistic flourishes that compound his story's overwrought faux-naturalism.Considering the lyrical grace of his heralded first feature, Green's devolution from one of American cinema's most promising talents to his current position as simply another middling indie lightweight is hard to fathom. Yet with his latest, Green misses the cross in so many respects - from a multi-strand plot devoid of insight, to performances that are generally overcooked, to a mise-en-scne that comes up largely empty in the section of divine grace and beauty - that it makes one wonder if his upcoming foray into director-for-hire work (with this summer's raunchy stoner comedy The Pineapple Express) isn't a shrewd attempt to run his own increasingly faulty auteurist instincts.A gunshot rings out in the chilly air, interrupting a high school marching band practice going so poorly that the squad's coach (Tom Noonan) is compelled to yell (in theme-underlining fashion), "We're all division of a formation. Every person matters!" Cue an Altman-esque tale of wayward individuals look for constancy and community, though not before Noonan - orchestrating a rendering of the classic Peter Gabriel song - follows up with the cheeky query, "Do you have a sledgehammer in your spirit? Because I have a sledgehammer in my heart." Certainly, Snow Angels has a sledgehammer in its head, since the ensuing drama is heavy in both form and content, despite Green's frequent penchant for allowing his camera to roll away from the action proper and blow off into the sky, a twist that reflects not imaginative directorial inquisitiveness as often as a flighty lack of focus. Still, Green's pensive approach to storytelling does, for a time, keep things mildly intriguing, as he tenderly lays out his story about the broken families of high schooler Arthur (Michael Angarano) - whose parents are divorcing - and his childhood babysitter and town beauty Annie (Kate Beckinsale), estranged from hubby Glenn (Sam Rockwell) and having an intimacy with the spouse (Nicky Katt) of her best friend (Amy Sedaris). The trouble of interval and the awkward thrill of new love are Snow Angels' prevailing interests, the latter expressed via Arthur's budding romance with a recent transfer (Juno's Olivia Thirlby) who's a parcel of cute quirk, whether it be her pursuit of taking black-and-white photos of her new hometowns, her nerdy-sexy glasses, or her use of openly blurting out her feelings to Arthur. Arthur and Lila's burgeoning relationship has a sweet sincerity even when the writer/director's scripting veers awfully close to affected over-sentimentality. Unfortunately, Arthur's adventure in amour plays second play to the efforts of Annie to deal with Glenn, an alcoholic, born-again headcase living with his parents and despairing to both reconcile with Annie and expend time with their four-year-old daughter Tara (Grace Hudson). The couple's downward spiral into force and disaster is the film's narrative hub, and a weak one it quickly proves to be, because Green (once again collaborating with cinematographer Tim Orr) layers his story with so many hollow cinematographic devices that any acute, affecting perceptions about the complexities of love, family and duty are hopelessly muffled. Throughout Snow Angels, Green seeks profundity through visual means, his trembling camera and manicured compositions trying mightily to instill events with deeper, resonant meaning. That this self-conscious aesthetic has the reverse effect ultimately proves debilitating, though Beckinsale radiates genuine fierceness and frustration (this despite being somewhat miscast as a working-class waitress), and her rapport with Rockwell has an offhand, comfortable-after-all-these-years authenticity. On the other hand, Rockwell's performance as the pitiful, well-meaning but increasingly dangerous Glenn is a lot of ultra-actorly scrunched-faced expressions, squirmy gestures, and unhinged brooding. In the actor's defense, however, no sum of shade and restraint would save some of the melodramatic scenarios Glenn is saddled with, none more inexplicably goofy than a nocturnal bar room bender that culminates with him slow-dancing - as a birthday cake inscribed with the word "Champ" glows conspicuously in the background - with a strange old woman attired like Freddy Krueger.
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