ith director Wim Wenders and playwright Peter Handke setting the benchmark with “Wings of Desire,” this American copycat seemed headed for trouble. Wenders set his angels over Berlin. What possible good could come of director Brad Silberling’s placing them over Los Angeles? And yet Nicholas Cage has that look… wan, defeated, forlorn, desiring. If ever there was a weary angel, Cage is the man. Seth (Cage) and Cassiel (a well-cast Andre Braugher) preside over busy freeways like postmodern crows over a landscape that they long-since gave up on. The movie takes a menacing Hollywood turn when Seth falls for heart surgeon Dr. Maggie Rice (Meg Ryan, who else?), but it never surrenders a kind of quirky sweetness. Silberling later directed “Moonlight Mile,” in which his sensitivity matured and blossomed.
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About the Author: Marcia Yarrow
A military brat, Marcia Yarrow was born in Hamburg, Germany but grew up in Germany, Spain, and Provo, Utah. She's been writing for the magazine since its creation in 2004.