Ordinary Angels (2024) Lionsgate/Drama RT: 118 minutes Rated PG (thematic content, brief bloody images) Director: Jon Gunn Screenplay: Meg Tilly and Kelly Fremon Craig Music: Pancho Burgos-Goizueta Cinematography: Maya Bankovic Release date: February 23, 2024 (US) Cast: Hilary Swank, Alan Ritchson, Nancy Travis, Tamala Jones, Emily Mitchell, Skywalker Hughes, Drew Powell, Dempsey Bryk, Amy Acker, Stephanie Sy, Nancy Sorel.
Rating: ***
I learned a new acronym while prepping for my review of Ordinary Angels. It’s BOATS which stands for Based On A True Story. Cool. It makes my job just a little easier. As long as I use all caps, nobody will think I’ve lost my mind when talking about films based on true events.
Right from the start, we know where the BOATS drama Ordinary Angels is going and that everything will turn out alright. They wouldn’t have made a movie if the story didn’t have a happy ending. Generally speaking, dramas with depressing outcomes don’t go over with audiences. Look what happened with Pay It Forward. I know a few people who are still angry over the fate of Haley Joel Osment’s character in the 2000 drama. ANYWAY, that’s not an issue in Ordinary Angels. It has a happy ending. Yes, I’m breaking my rule about dropping spoilers. It’s okay though; this movie is more about the journey than the final destination.
It’s been said that angels walk among us. Nobody ever said they’re all saints. That’s certainly the case with Sharon Stevens (Swank, Million Dollar Baby), a hairdresser and salon co-owner who likes to drink and whoop it up when she’s off the clock. No sense mincing words, she’s a mess. A longtime alcoholic, her resentful adult son (Bryk, TV’s Willow) wants nothing to do with her and her bff/business partner Rose (Jones, Booty Call) is beyond concerned. She makes Sharon attend an AA meeting, but that goes as well as one might expect. She walks out and heads straight to the nearest store to buy a six pack. That’s when the universe intervenes.
While waiting in line, Sharon spots a headline in the local paper about a seriously ill little girl whose mother just died. It hits her right where she lives. She crashes the funeral where she strikes up a conversation with the girl Michelle (Mitchell, Women Talking) and her older sister Ashley (Hughes, Joe Pickett). The grieving dad Ed (Ritchson, Fast X) is understandably uncomfortable with his girls talking to this stranger who just showed up out of nowhere.
Sharon decides she just has to help this family. They’re in over their heads in debt with the mounting hospital bills and medication costs. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. There’s no way they’ll ever be able to pay it off. Ed’s job as an independent contractor barely helps him make ends meet. Sharon shows up at Ed’s front door one night with an envelope stuffed with cash from a fundraiser she held at the salon. Ed’s reluctant to accept it; his mother Barbara (Travis, So I Married an Axe Murderer) invites her to join them for dinner. It’s the least she can do.
Sharon says it best herself when she tells Ed “I’m good at plenty of things, but taking no for an answer isn’t one of them.” She goes on to prove it by taking over the family’s finances and heading a campaign to raise money for a liver transplant for Michelle. If she doesn’t have it, she’ll die. Along the way, Sharon and the girls grow close with their dad quietly seethes with resentment over not being able to take care of his family himself.
Director Jon Gunn (Do You Believe?) keeps the tension high in the third act when Michelle’s transplant is threatened by the major blizzard/cold spell that brought the country to a standstill in January 1994. Even though we know how it’s going to turn out, we still worry for the little girl. After all we’ve been through with her and the other major characters, the last thing we want is for her not to make it to the hospital in time. Gunn crushes it emotionally, leaning heavily into tried-and-true tropes like the inevitable scene where the whole community shows up to lend a hand. You know it’s coming, but it still gets you.
Two-time Oscar winner Swank shows she’s still got game as Sharon, a tenacious lady who plays hard to get rid of. She’s in it for the long haul, but why? Is it pure altruism or is she trying to fix what’s broken about herself? Obviously, it’s both, but she has to address the latter before she can effectively do the former. Thankfully, the screenplay by Kelly Fremon Craig and Meg Tilly (yes, that Meg Tilly!) never loses sight of this. Neither does Swank. She’s really good in Ordinary Angels as is Ritchson as Ed, a good father coping with loss and the prospect of another. He’s a man on autopilot, a guy trying not to let his emotions get in the way of taking care of his girls. The two little girls do a fine job too. They’re both cute without being too cloying. Travis, an actress I really like, acquits herself nicely as the tough, loving grandmother who takes a liking to Sharon.
Yes, Ordinary Angels is collection of melodrama clichés. Yes, it sometimes plays like a Hallmark movie. Yes, it’s sort of a religious film with references to God, miracles and faith (or loss thereof). None of that bothers me. Hey, I’m a sucker for sappy dramas about sick kids and damaged people in need of healing. Gunn could have tightened things up a bit, but Ordinary Angels is a good movie for the most part. It’s one of the better movies I’ve seen this month.
