"I comforted myself with writing."
An Angel at My Table is a 1990 biopic focusing on the life of New Zealand writer Janet Frame. It is based on Frame's three autobiographies: To the Is-Land (1982), An Angel at My Table (1984), and The Envoy from Mirror City (1984). The film was directed by Jane Campion, and originally aired as a TV Mini Series in three parts. Frame is portrayed by three different actors, with Kerry Fox playing the adult Janet. The film was a critical success in Campion's native New Zealand and established her career as an emerging director. It won the Best Foreign Film prize at the Independent Spirit Awards and the International Critics' Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The film starts with Janet Frame's rural childhood in 1920s New Zealand, and follows her into adolescence and adulthood as her gift of writing is nurtured. A panic attack at Janet's first job as a schoolteacher convinces Janet's worried parents to commit her to a mental institution, where Frame is misdiagnosed as a schizophrenic. Janet continues to write, and her talent helps to get her released from the hospital. The film ends with Frame's travels to Spain and Britain after she wins a writer's grant.
This film contains the following:
- Affectionate Nickname: Janet’s family gives her the nicknames Nini and Topsy (for her red hair).
- Biopic: The film is a biopic of writer Janet Frame. It does subvert the structure of typical biopics, though, by not delving into the subject's medium (Janet's writing in this case) and does not dwell on the darkest parts of the subject's life.
- Coming of Age Story: The film follows Janet from her childhood to adulthood. It can also be considered a "late bloomer" coming-of-age story as Janet doesn't get to experience some seminal events until well into adulthood.
- Culture Clash: When Janet arrives in Ibiza, Spain, she encounters some difficulty with the Language Barrier.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Janet has endured a lot, but the eight years she spent in and out of a mental hospital is particularly harrowing.
- Deus ex Machina: Janet’s writing. Just before doctors at the mental asylum are about to do a lobotomy on Janet, a collection of her short stories gets published and she wins a literary prize. The doctors decide not to go through with the procedure and Janet is released from the hospital Just in Time.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Janet endures eight years in a psychiatric institution (where she underwent more than 200 electroshock treatments) and becomes a renowned writer, traveling the world and reclaiming her independence.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Before the start of a university lecture, Janet's professor is seductively lying on his table as he plays Tchaikovsky music, to the delight of some of his female students. Janet is clearly flustered at his display.
- First Period Panic: Janet freaks out when she gets her first period, but her mother quickly calms her nerves and helps her fashion a makeshift pad. While wearing the pad, she deals with the everyday fear of leaving a stain on a seat.
- Foreshadowing: During a day out by a lake, the Frame family gathers for a photograph. In the developed photo, the family notices that Myrtle’s image did not fully transfer to the print. In a tragic turn of circumstances, Myrtle later drowns.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Janet’s father Curly is supportive of her talents but can be a hothead.
- Jumping-to-Conclusions Diagnosis: Variation. Janet is misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, when in reality she only suffers from depression and is painfully shy. This is attributed to a limited understanding of mental illness in the medical community and in New Zealand at the time.
- Love Hurts: Janet gets to experience her first love with an American teacher she meets during her summer in Spain. Though their fling ends in heartbreak, it is a formative experience for Janet.
- Kids Are Cruel: Janet observes a bunch of schoolyard kids bullying her epileptic brother George, calling him “queer-minded” and a “loony,” which highlights the stigmatization of mental illness and how it was considered a weakness.
- Innocent Swearing: As a child, Janet learns about the birds and bees through her friend Poppy, who introduces the word "fuck" to her. Later, Janet witnesses her older sister Myrtle having sex with a boy. Not knowing "fuck" is a swear word, Janet casually mentions that Myrtle was doing this during the family’s dinner, causing her father to go berserk and punish Myrtle with a belt whipping.
- Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Janet’s need to please others is shown when as a kid, she uses money stolen from her father to distribute chewing gum to her classmates. As a teen, Janet doesn’t have much of a social life, engrossing herself in her studies but longing to be in with the popular crowd. Her shyness follows her to her professional life, where she cannot join her fellow schoolteachers for tea because she doesn’t know what to say to them.
- No Social Skills: Janet is very shy and finds it difficult to socialize with others.
- Performance Anxiety: On Janet’s first day of work as a schoolteacher, a inspector visits her classroom. Janet freezes up at the blackboard and gets a panic attack.
- Period Piece: The film’s time span covers the 1920s to the 1950s.
- Redheads Are Uncool: Janet is seen as different from other kids because of her unusual looks—a chubby little girl with a fuzzy mop of curly red hair.
- Sadist Teacher: The schoolteacher that punishes Janet for sharing gum by making her stand at the front of the class and stay indoors while the other kids go out and play. Eventually, a tearful Janet is forced to admit where she got the money for the gum.
- Scenery Porn: The film shows lush landscapes of southern New Zealand
, as well as scenery in Ibiza where Janet briefly stays. - Shrinking Violet: Janet is pathologically shy.
- Slice of Life: The film captures scenes of everyday rural life in New Zealand, as well as village life on the island of Ibiza.
- Time-Shifted Actor: Child Janet is played by Alexia Keogh, teenage Janet is played by Karen Fergusson, and adult Janet is played by Kerry Fox.
- Writers Are Writers
