Angel Baby is the story of two schizophrenics, Harry (John Lynch) and Kate (Jacqueline McKenzie), who meet during a therapy session. He's an Irish immigrant living with his brother Morris (Colin Friels) and sister-in-law Louise (a young Deborra-Lee Furness). She is a cerebral free spirit who prays to a messenger named Astral and learns about life from watching Wheel of Fortune. After a rather fiery first encounter, they quickly find a soulmate in each other. Soon, Kate falls pregnant and they must risk everything they have to stay together.
I first saw Angel Baby for my uni film studies and while I wouldn't call it the best film I've ever seen about mental illness, it's surely the most realistic. As you can see it won seven Australian Film Institute Awards (now the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards) in 1995, and it richly deserved the lot. Writer-director Michael Rymer, now Hollywood-based, takes what could've been such a contrived, manipulative saga and instead brings such sincere concern for his characters through a forceful but rational visualization of their journey. It's a very honest portrayal of schizophrenia, and while our protagonists (particularly Kate) occasionally seem stereotypical, Rymer's movie is simply trying overall to say people with mental illness don't all live in a totally altered state. They do face the same problems as everybody else; they just have their own ways of dealing with them. The snappy editing and unnerving sound design bring this message home even more.
But McKenzie and Lynch really are the heart and soul, respectively, of Angel Baby. She portrays this very spiritual and optimistic but often tempestuous young woman with real earthy grace and a delicate touch. She's never been better and yes, like in most of her work from the '90s she gets her kit off here. And Lynch, despite having the more overtly emotional role, is equally devastating. Friels also provides solid support as Morris, and keep your eyes peeled for a very young Samuel Johnson as a Kmart checkout boy.
Angel Baby will shake you to the core. But sometimes, we all need such a shake.
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