An Angel at My Table (1990, Jane Campion) (Patreon)

64/100

Second viewing, last seen during its original U.S. theatrical release. Biopics about writers face a particularly steep uphill climb for me, and can evidently plant their flag only so high; while this is undoubtedly among the finer examples, it still eventually smacks into the unforgiving wall that is "visual medium" + "protagonist whose creative mode entails staring into space and then scribbling/typing a bit." To her credit, Campion gets around this (somewhat) by eschewing Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman clichés, tackling Frame's memoirs—especially during most of "To the Is-land," before Kerry Fox takes over the role—in a relaxed, anecdotal way, devoid of foreshadowing and largely indistinguishable from that of any given fictional coming-of-age story. You become invested in Janet for her own sake, not for what she'll later accomplish, and she's passionate about her work without exhibiting an ounce of self-importance (leading to grim hilarity when the dude she fancies while in Spain interrupts their making out to get her opinion of his latest shitty poem). It's also remarkable and gratifying that the film isn't anchored by Frame's time in a psychiatric hospital, misdiagnosed as schizophrenic—one need only imagine what practically any American filmmaker would do with that juicy stretch of a celebrity's biography to appreciate Campion touching upon it briefly and then moving on. Though it's probably not a coincidence that this is the point at which she suddenly introduces voiceover narration ("Over the next eight years, I received more than 200 applications of electric shock treatment, each one equivalent in fear to an execution"), after nearly 90 minutes of strictly third-person narrative. Justifiable as the emergence of the writer's voice, perhaps, but I nonetheless find it intrusive. Also, while all three Frames are generally excellent, it's odd that Karen Fergusson, as the teen incarnation, seems significantly less shy and awkward than do her younger and older counterparts; I actually like her performance the best (precisely because it relies less heavily on generating pathos), but Fox's ultra-anxious Janet comes across as having inexplicably retreated back into herself. Maybe it's just the rotten teeth. All in all, about as good as this inherently constricted subgenre gets, featuring fewer typewriter clicks and clacks than the vast majority of its sorry brethren.