Angela is a 1995 film, Rebecca Miller's directorial debut. It won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film and the Gotham Awards.
This film is the story of a young girl and her quest to "purify" herself. Angela (Miranda Stuart Rhyne) is a 10-year-old girl trying to cope with a dysfunctional family. Her parents are former performers who have resigned themselves to the loss of their dreams. They are now having problems in their relationship. Her mother Mae (Anna Thomson) has drastic mood shifts that bring her from manic happiness to utter misery. Her father Andrew (John Ventimiglia) tries to hold everyone together, but Mae's vacillations are becoming more than he can manage.
Angela tries to cope by inventing an imaginary universe of 'order' for herself and her little sister. Left to figure out everything for themselves, she grabs at scraps of religion, superstition, and fantasy to try and make some sense out of the world and understand...