Angus

Angus is fourteen, large, and a target for everyone at school. Rick, the popular boy of the class, has been at him for years. There is one person on Angus's mind: Melissa. Melissa is Rick's girlfriend. A trick is played at the school's winter dance, and the vote makes Angus king and Melissa queen. The vote is not real; Rick and his friends arranged it to humiliate him. Angus thinks about not going. His grandfather and his one friend Troy think otherwise. Patrick Read Johnson directs. Charlie Talbert plays Angus, Kathy Bates his mother, Chris Owen plays Troy and James Van Der Beek plays Rick. George C. Scott is also in the cast. It is an American production. Charlie Talbert had never acted before this film and was at school when he was cast. The film follows the nineties teen shape but does not transform its hero; Angus does not slim down and does not change. The matter it treats is shame; the film finds its answer not in being accepted but in standing up for oneself. The speech at the dance is at the centre of the narrative and is delivered straight to the audience. The narrative carries a family line too, and the mother and the grandfather give the film weight. The film is remembered for the music of its period and the album did better than the film. The narrative leaves Rick one dimensional and never looks at the other side. The ending gives no scene of triumph but does give hope. Its limit is simplicity; the plot is thin, the characters are types, and the pace flat. Who it is for: viewers who like nineties high school films. Who it is not for: it is simple, formulaic, and the ending predictable.