User reviews

I have absolutely no idea how I came with the idea of watching this movie. As soon as it started I immediately understood that it was about the Amanda Knox case even though they use different names. So I thought it would be interesting to watch a movie about that. But what a disappointed that turned out to be. The story goes back and forth between the life of the journalists and the case itself. Difficult to follow and also extremely boring. Not that the actors were bad or so. They were all believable in their roles. But the story was just too boring and badly written. At one point I was battling not to fall asleep and at the end I just lost the battle. In a case like that I would normally just rewind until the part I fell asleep but with this movie I could not care less. I don't even want to know how it ended, too boring to waste anymore of my time with it.

Only one-thirds into the movie did I realize what it was supposed to be: a multi-layered, poetic piece with lofty characters. I should've gotten the hint from the opening scene and the narrative prose throughout the movie. Unfortunately it all ended up as too pretentious and cannot even be filed under the pool of psychological thrillers.

It's got a lot of lost potential; we've got some good actors caught in their bad moments, as if they couldn't afford another take. It was difficult to empathize with any of the characters. Eventually I got tired of watching Thomas (Daniel Brühl) going on impulsive snog fests with Simone and sniff cocaine because god knows why... it's hard to figure out what kind of character he's supposed to be. The only two characters true-to-form were Edoardo (Valerio Mastandrea) and Melanie (Cara Delevingne), and I'd have to give a special mention to Delevingne mostly for actually doing well in her first speaking part in a feature film.

This must be the biggest load of tripe I have seen in ages.The so called story of Amanda Knox is embellished and confused introducing unnecessary anomalies and fantasies.

From the cocaine snorting journalist to the disjointed storyline incorporating mythical creatures the story does not stack up at all.

If they were going to tell the story of Meredith Kercher why did they feel it necessary to change people's names.

I cannot see the purpose if this movie and why it was made - totally pointless, boring and uninteresting .

There is simply no redeeming features that can recommend this movie

Do not waste your money in watching this rubbish

I am glad I gave this film a chance and watched it til the end as I was pleasantly surprised with how it framed the murder of Meredith Kercher and its media coverage. The film manages to portrait the multi-dimensional aspects of the media, student life in Italy, and the various people affected by this crime. Most important and touching was that Meredith Kercher was given a human face and was not lost in the shadow of Amanda Knox's celebrity/villain representations provided in previous films/documentaries.

Some will say that t is still too soon to be making a film about a murder case that shocked the World and they are arguably right. I did not know this was about that until I started watching it and will judge it as a film in its own rights. Anyway Daniel Bruhl plays a film maker who has had a run of bad luck and wants to make a film about the murder case and he teams up with a journalist played by Kate Beckinsale; she has been following the case from the start in Sienna.

The case is ongoing as the film develops and Bruhl's character gets completely immersed and for those that followed the case there will be moments of déjà vu through out. There are many references to Dante's 'Divine Comedy' too and some rather awkward dream sequences.

Is it any god though? Well I was not disinterested at all but it was still not riveting. Everyone puts in a good performance although some are a bit stereo typed – especially some of the journalists. So it is above average but I could not get away from the fact that for some people this case is still a living hell and that cast a pall over any 'enjoyment' (if that is the right word) that I could get from this production – hence my rating but I would not try to dissuade anyone from seeing this especially if you are fan of either of the leading actors as they both serve their trade well.

I like Michael Winterbottom. It's probably cheap to call this pretentious but it is about a filmmaker hanging around and sometimes sleeping with very beautiful women, writing a film about the Murder of the girl in the film, who has lots of interviews which producers and financiers in which he talks about what he's trying to say in the film and the structure of the film with is based on Dante's Inferno (one of Dante's books at least). I'll call it self reflexive

I don't know but I'm gonna say it's about Michael Winterbottooms life and divorce (it can't be another film about Steve Coogans life). The film director (Bruhl) makes reference to him needing a hit after his last film flopped... I wondered which film that was (in real life), because I didn't think any of Winterbottoms films made money. I've always wondered how he got films funded. I like his films a lot, but I just thought it was like funding Derek Jarman, you're always gonna lose money but you'd feel good about it. Like you've done something worthwhile, but not as gay maybe. I mean I didn't think he felt pressure to make money.....

I don't think this deserved to be as derided as it was. i was impressed with the accuracy to the real life case. The insanely dislikable daily mail columnist is Nick Pisa, who is insanely dislikable..The Police chief really reminded me of the actual chief and so did a lot of the cast. A lot of the seemingly small events are based on real events and are accurately portrayed. And despite me calling it pretentious I do like the self reflexive nature of this film. I think it worked and I enjoyed it more afterwards thinking about the three act structure (they talk about it in the movie) and its resolution and Cara being a sort or adopted daughter.

This would be a great film to talk about over a meal, because it has depth and because it will so obviously polarise opinion, getting under some people's skin and feeling painfully obvious and other people clicking with it.

I think with a semi autobiographical film like this, you're more likely to get away with a Woody Allen style approach (I.e. Comedy) and not be called pretentious and Winterbottom has done this before with 'The Trip' and 'A Cock and blah blah' and people found it easier to stomach. When you go later Woody Allen's serious stuff, you upset people. This is 'Interiors' but about a real life murder. So I can see it's pretty difficult for people to separate the art from the fact.

I clicked though!

Having, previously to seeing the film, read all four of the user reviews on IMDb.com - all of which expressed some degree of negative criticism of the film - I went to see The Face of an Angel somewhat apprehensive about what to expect. What had peeked my interest was that I'd also heard that this was more a film about a filmmaker struggling to discover what he believed to be an underlying 'truth' about the main female characters involved in the murder, as opposed to the 'good girl' / 'bad girl' sensationalism which he saw the tabloid media as focusing on. This, to me, sounded to be of far more interest than a movie merely purporting to solve or throw further light on the crime would have been. And, happily for me, that's how it transpired. As I watched I was fascinated by how the main protagonist (Thomas) had to wrestle with decision making in aspects of his personal life as well as in finding some way of telling the murder trial story as he thought it should be told. I found the acting and directing to be more than adequate and that there was more than one 'face of an angel' to add to the film's appeal. I enjoyed the film so much I saw it a second time the next day. Recommended. 7/10.

Barbie Latza Nadeau's novel based on a true event has been transformed (or mutated) into a screenplay by Paul Viragh and the result as directed by Michael Winterbottom is a fine scenic tour of Sienna, Italy – and little else.

The story is based on true events - a journalist (Kate Beckinsale) and a filmmaker (Daniel Brühl) lose themselves in a notorious murder case they are covering – the controversial case of a American student accused of murder (the victim in truth, one Meredith Kercher) in Italy. Somehow the story gets lost in translation but if you can get past the fact that this is more of a fantasy film than reportage portions of can be entertaining. It does allow a primarily Italian cast to look great and decorate the already visually stunning sites of Sienna.

'The only way to really tell what happened is to fictionalise it - that's the only way to get to the truth' - Words to this effect are said at the beginning of the film (I can't be sure of the exact quote and would never want to see it again) so I thought okay, I see where they're going with this. Change the names so we can explore everything that needs to be said about this case. What we got however is an incoherent, uneven, self indulgent piece about a coke sniffing delusional film maker who fails to connect with either the story or the people around him while trying to write a script about it. Maybe that is what happened as a result of the director trying to make this film, but then okay, don't make a film about that! The memory of Meredith Kercher is lost here and becomes almost as irrelevant as the title of the film which tries to have a clever double meaning and fails on every level. When I heard this film was in the works under the stewardship of Michael Winterbottom I thought it was going to be in safe hands. He is a brilliant film maker. No stranger to the world of true life drama stories but something went really wrong here. The film feels like it became a parody of what a film maker goes through when trying to make a film of this type - which is complex and difficult to get to the truth of, while that is as maybe this is completely the wrong subject and material with which to explore those issues - For one thing its about a true life murder case when an innocent girl with her whole life ahead of her was brutally murdered and those responsible appear to have got away with it. I was expecting a film with real balls which was going to take on the known facts of this case which captured the media attention of the world and work through them methodically and give some much needed clarity to areas of the case which have been portrayed with ever increasing conflict in the media. If the Kercher family were hoping this film would in anyway give them a sense of closure or at least bring some light to the darker areas of this case, how disappointed they must have been. I find it hard to understand what attracted the cast to the material though Daniel Bruhl is on form in the leading role and redeems himself well but do we really need to dodgy CGI monsters induced by this drug taking? An extremely badly misjudged film which hopefully will be forgotten very quickly.

It boggles my mind how studios pay money for movies like this one. Even worse, because it's not a typical account of the events surrounding this story and more about finding an interesting angle around it, they even have scenes with studio executives that have looks of horror on their faces when the Director talks about how he wants to make it into the trash that it became. Still, they went ahead with it. They must feel like complete fools and I'm guessing such a high valued actress like Kate Beckinsale has her regrets as well.

It's just a pretentious pile of poop in the end. Hypocritical as well since it tries to put itself above the trash journalism surrounding this story but ends up putting in the same sensationalistic crap that 'sells' stories. So lame.

I was even more disheartened when I saw a few of the UK Utopia actors, Alistair Petrie and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett in the film. They must be gutted being in this one after being in such a great one like Utopia.

Thank you for wasting my time BBC Films, Cattleya, Multitrade, Revolution Films, Vedette Finance and Ypsilon Films. There's obviously not a sensible one in the lot of ya.

The Face of an Angel: A film about a guy making a film about a book about a headlining controversial murder of a student studying abroad in Italy that points suspicions toward her roommate and the roommate's lover.

In reality, the 'headlining' murder is that of Meredith Kercher, more well known to the public as the trial of Amanda Knox. The Face of An Angel is not a reenactment of the media's coverage of this case, rather a creative interpretation told through the eyes of a journalist Simone and documentary maker named Thomas as he chases the story as it unfolds.

Within the film are several quotes that reveal the true errors in the film's ways, even if its intents were commendable. Firstly, it is more fictional than fact and is not a true crime investigation of the murder, as one character states: "If you're gonna make a movie, make it a fiction. You cannot tell the truth unless you make it a fiction."

This is true of the murder of Meredith Kercher. No one truly knows what went on in that bedroom. So much hearsay has transpired that to claim to tell the truth through a creative interpretation would lead to certain failure.

It is like the director Michael Winterbottom and screenwriter Paul Viragh were aware of the obvious tropes that would certainly damn the film. As one piece of dialogue uttered by the journalist of the film, played by Daniel Brühl, reveals: "It's not about 'whodunnit'…there are so many angles, how to organize it in a meaningful way, it's important that its a story based on truth, but i want to do something that transcends that, that its not just a simple reconstruction…"

In trying to avoid those cliché ideas, The Face of an Angel fails in an unexpected but admirable manner. It is unable to grasp the true essence of the murder that captivated the world in being completely unstructured and focused upon Thomas.

There are aspects of the film that work well and reveal a softer more intriguing side of the investigation. The media's preoccupation with not-Amanda when the true attention should be on the victim, who the tabloid journalists in the film say 'fade into the background.' The focus upon sex and murder due to its innate ability to sell newspapers and compulsive way in which the press perpetuates the images of the key figures in the case. The protagonists frustrations with this simplistic mindset yields a more complete view of the girls as students and people, and does not reduce them to facsimiles.

It is an interesting attempt and the cinematography of the scenes had a certain mood that was effective. But ultimately it fails to showcase a greater message, and the pretentious desire to incorporate Dante Alighieri's source material is off-putting.

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I never write reviews, but actually signed on to this site to post a review after watching this movie. I feel like I just wasted two hours of my life. It takes a lot for me to not like a movie... I can usually find something to like....but not with this movie. I thought this movie would be about the story of the murder. It's not. It's really a movie about the writer's experiences while researching this murder. The whole movie is a bumbling mess, focused more on the writer's life, than on the actual murder case. It should not be advertised as being about the murder. It's really like this writer used this story as a platform to write a story about his own life, which by the way, is not interesting enough to carry a movie. To make it even worse, the very few moments they recreate the trial....it's all spoken in Italian with no translation.

The Amanda Knox saga, on which this is based, is an incredibly compelling real-life thriller. It has all the elements--xenophobia, exotic location, pretty people, legal saber-rattling, murder most foul, the irrationality of the enraged populace, wrongful conviction and a compelling heroine who wins in the end.

Now, how do you take THAT and make this incredibly dull, meandering film? I often criticize films that are "Hollywood-ed up," but here, they could have used some Hollywood attention to character development and pacing. The script is limp. The characters are laconic. Nothing much happens. The director has done better. The actors have done better. One day, someone will make a truly compelling film on this remarkable tale. This is not it.

I found this film most affecting. There have been Winterbottom films I've liked when others haven't like, 9 Songs and Killer Inside Me and there again been disappointed with films such as Cock and Bull Story and The Claim. Face of an Angel is confusing and rather difficult to get a handle on at first, partly because of the change of names (place and people) and partly because the director wants it this way. He can't just come out and say, 'You are all fascinated by Amanda Fox, the devil with an angel face who gets off - in more ways than one'. Instead we are shown so many angles, given so many people's opinions and taken down so many dark alleys we become disorientated. The he strikes, the film maker within the film makes desperate attempts to connect with his young daughter via the often appalling Skype facility, confuses us with other possible killers, exasperates us with the Italian legal system and leaves us wondering just who among us has the face of an angel. Halfway through the film I felt that I was just not going to get it and by the end I was almost in tears. The victim really is the victim as is in a lesser way the would be film maker cast aside by his production company for not coming up with a film people might want to watch. Heroic. PS I should mention that Cara Delevingne was a revelation, managing to light up the screen whenever she appeared

Prolific filmmaker Michael Winterbottom takes meta-textual approach of the Amanda Knox murder saga in The Face of an Angel. An American student in Italy has been accused of murdering her English roommate with her Italian boyfriend which has caused a media frenzy. There is a lot of speculation based on circumstantial evidence gathered by incompetent police.

Thomas (Daniel Brühl) a filmmaker on a downward spiral both professionally and in his personal life is sent to Siena, Italy to observe the trial as material for a true life crime thriller. He is aided by a Rome based American journalist Simone (Kate Beckinsale) who provides him with expert background information.

Thomas also meets another international student who also works as a bartender, Melanie (Cara Delevingne) who shows him the sordid side of Siena. They go to parties, score drugs and he has visions fuelled by this messy, fuzzy life as well as his interest in Dante's The Divine Comedy.

Whereas other tabloid journalists are just interested in sex and sleaze as a route to make money rather then finding out the truth of this murder case, Thomas wants to develop a script for a medieval morality play.

The film starts off interestingly enough, Thomas is the stranger in town intending to do the victim justice rather than chase a meal ticket but the film gets less involving as the character of Thomas gets lost in Siena. Winterbottom might be too self righteous here about the media but the film still arouses curiosity.