Production Notes

Angels was shot with a small cast on a single set near Charlottesville, Virginia over a total of six weekends. Drawing on local actors, crew and financing, the production represents the first step in the creation of a regional independent cinema in central Virginia.

As Paul Wagner, the Academy Award- winning director of Angels, says, “Just as regional theater assumed a vital role alongside Broadway and Off-Broadway over the last thirty years, we want to raise up a regional cinema to complement Hollywood and the New York/LA-based independent scene. There are stories and storytellers out here in the great flyover zone that moviegoers need to hear and want to hear. And the rise of digital production and digital distribution now makes it possible.”

Thematically, Angels operates on at least two distinct levels. It is a comic farce taking off on countless angel movies in which a hapless human finds truth and happiness in the last reel. But it is also a genuinely spiritual movie, turning over easy moral answers and plumbing the depths of the human comedy.

Angels stars E. Danny Murphy (featured in Terrence Malick’s The New World) as Bobby Buchanan, a rich, misanthropic “Scrooge” for the new millennium. Making her screen debut as the Irish cook Nuala is New York and Charlottesville stage veteran Boomie Pedersen. Rounding out the principal cast is a trio of talented newcomers with Charlottesville roots, Ed Festa, Ian Unterman and Maggie Bell.

The film includes songs from ATO Records, a Charlottesville-based label featuring artists Patty Griffin, David Gray, Ben Kweller and Jem. Charlottesville’s local-musician-made-good Dave Matthews contributes a song, as does cult-fave Ron Sexsmith and emerging artist Antje Duvekot. The original score is by Seamus Egan of Solas, who composed the score for The Brothers McMullen.

The screenplay for Angels was written by Wagner and Charlottesville author Karl Ackerman, whose novels include The Patron Saint of Unmarried Women (optioned for a film by Opray Winfrey’s Harpo Productions). Wagner produced the film with Will Kerner, a noted photographer and the co-founder of Charlottesville’s leading theater company.

The Virginia-based crew includes director of photography Gene Rhodes, editors Neil Means and Tony Black (Homicide and K Street), production designers Catherine Dee and John Owen, and casting director (and University of Virginia professor) Betsy Tucker.

Synopsis

Bobby Buchanan has the same problem we all have—he’s going to die. Bobby, however, is going to die today. And go to hell. He agreed to this in a deal with the devil ten years ago, a deal that also made him the richest man in the world. Now, alone in his central Virginia mansion, Bobby waits for the end.

The end arrives in the persons of Victor and Sharif—two angels-of-death sent to pick up Bobby’s soul. Sharif, the old pro, is annoyed by Victor, the rookie who has watched one too many re-runs of It’s a Wonderful Life. Behind Sharif’s back, Victor assures Bobby that he can avoid death if they can find one person who loves him. The problem is, Bobby is a first-class jerk. Plus, they have less than two hours to find somebody.

Victor isn’t the only one trying to save Bobby’s life. Bobby’s lawyer, Greer Valentine, stands to lose a major cash cow if Bobby passes. Thinking that Bobby’s about to kill himself, Greer brings in fundamentalist preacher Choo-Choo Coles and new age psychic Kharma Carolina to revive Bobby’s fading spirit.

But when Choo-Choo and Kharma fail to inspire Bobby, Greer hatches a new scheme. He calls on Bobby’s old girlfriend, Mona, to lure the desperate billionaire into a minutes-before-death marriage, transferring Bobby’s billions to Greer’s new client, Mona.

Victor, of course, encourages the Bobby- Mona reunion, certain that it will prove to the heavenly powers-that-be that Bobby has found love. Happily, Bobby and Mona DO get married! Unhappily, the whole deal blows up in Victor’s and Greer’s and Bobby’s face.

While all this is happening upstairs in the mansion, another story emerges down in the kitchen. The Irish cook, Nuala, is holding forth on love, life and the joys of Irish dancing, in an extended dialogue with a waifish visitor named Tina. In the rush of preparing for Bobby’s wake, Nuala mistakes Tina for the caterer’s helper. Her true identity is one of many surprises to emerge in the twist-y, turn-y final minutes of Bobby Buchanan’s life.

ANGELS is a comedy about the human comedy. And it is a deeply spiritual film—as any theologian will tell you, laughter is proof of the existence of God.