Angel Baby movie review & film summary (1997)

Michael Rymer’s “Angel Baby” tells the story of Harry and Kate, who meet at an outpatient clinic for mental patients, who fall in love, who seem for a time to be blessed with each other, and who then make the mistake of growing overconfident and discontinuing their medication.

The results are inevitable, but this is not the film of unredeemed dreariness that story line would suggest; I have noticed in any number of Australian films a pull toward human comedy, an appreciation for the quirks and eccentric fillips of characters who may be doomed but rage cheerfully against the dying of the light. Even in their final downward spiral, Kate (Jacqueline McKenzie) and Harry (John Lynch) see hopeful omens.

But then Kate’s whole life is controlled by omens, which she receives from her guardian angel, named Astral. His method of communication is the Australian version of “Wheel of Fortune.” As the letters are turned over and the underlying phrases are revealed, Kate takes careful notes; she learns she’s pregnant, for example, when the Australian version of Vanna White turns over letters spelling out “Great Expectations.” And she believes it is Astral who is residing in her womb.

The movie avoids many of the cliches often found in pictures about mental illness. The professionals in the film, for example, are sensitive and competent. And in the film’s early scenes, it looks as if Harry and Kate might indeed be successful in their quest for love.

Harry is a nice man, who helps his young nephew banish monsters from the bedroom (he draws a magic chalk circle around the child’s bed), and when he’s around Kate, his face almost always reflects tender concern. She is more out of control; after a careless roller-blader in a mall store cuts her, she grows hysterical at her loss of blood and even licks some of it up off the floor. When they decide to move in together, the choice seems promising, but then they make the fateful decision to stop their medication.