City of Angels (1998)

"The most powerful and spellbinding romance in years.  Jay Carr, The Boston Globe
"A romantic film (that) earns its wings.  Newsweek
"The most powerful and spellbinding romance in years.  The Boston Globe
"...a lyrical, unabashedly romantic film [that] earns its wings...  David Ansen, Newsweek

Editor's Note Based in part on Wim Wenders's 1988 film, WINGS OF DESIRE, this is the story of Seth (Nicolas Cage), an angel who wanders the Los Angeles area invisible to humans. As someone's death approaches, he spends time near that person and becomes visible while acting as traveling companion during the trip to the great hereafter. His discovery of a distraught heart surgeon, Maggie (Meg Ryan), inspires him to forego his immortality and exist on earth with her as a feeling and mortal entity.

	Andre Braugher
	Dennis Franz
	Meg Ryan
	Nicolas Cage
	Wim Wenders - Based on Screenplay By
	John Seale - Cinematographer
	Shay Cunliffe - Costume Designer
	Brad Silberling - Director
	Lynzee Klingman - Editor
	Gabriel Yared, et al. - Musical Score
	Robert Cavallo, et al. - Producer
	Lilly Kilvert - Production Designer
	Dana Stevens - Screenplay

Sight and Sound
"...Cage's performance [is] at once intense and ethereal..." 07/??/1998 p.37-8

Entertainment Weekly
"...This New Agey take will still engage the heartrings of any mortal with the teensiest desire to believe..." -- Rating: B 09/18/1998 p.94

Box Office
"...It succeeds, thanks to Nicholas Cage's lovable puppy-dog-eyed appeal..." 06/01/1998 p.79

Los Angeles Times
"...CITY OF ANGELS does a haunting job of creating a lifestyle and a look for its heavenly creatures..." 04/10/1998 p.C1

Chicago Sun-Times
"...[Ryan is] sunny and persuasive....This is one of her best performances....There are revelations in this story..." 04/10/1998 p.33

San Francisco Chronicle 7 of 10
City of Angels' is an odd hybrid but a successful one. It marries the lyricism and heavy atmosphere of a European art film with the soaring spirit of a Hollywood love story. If the audience were allowed to think for too long -- to see the romantic machinery being dragged out -- the picture would break into pieces. But director Brad Silberling keeps it together, tugging here at human longing, there at fear, sometimes subtly, sometimes openly, and never too much... City of Angels demonstrates the best kind of emotionally manipulative filmmaking. The actors deserve a lot of the credit. As an angel experiencing human sensation for the first time, Nicolas Cage's power of concentration is such that he can convince an audience it's witnessing his first touch, his first kiss. There's no doubting his tenderness, his elation or his innocence... His heart leads him, of course, to where all men ultimately go in Meg Ryan movies -- to Ryan, who has made a career out of her ability to seem worthy of such enthusiasm. Here she's a little different -- a thoracic surgeon, an insomniac, a religious skeptic... City of Angels tries to have it both ways. It assures the audience that a spirit world exists, that there's life after death and that angels are standing by, waiting to give comfort. At the same time, it makes earthly emotions and sensations the pinnacle experience... - Mick LaSalle

Philadelphia City Paper 9 of 10
Nicolas Cage is the ideal choice for this role, which revisits the one played by Bruno Ganz in Wim Wenders' densely evocative Wings of Desire. Like Ganz, Cage has eyes that convey deep and soulful sadness; unlike Ganz, he has an engaging physical elasticity, so that his contortions as an angel who falls in love with a human woman become almost outrageously expressive. Cage is an extraordinary performer, capable of uncanny poise and sensual humor. The object of his affections is Meg Ryan. That she plays a heart surgeon is a weighty metaphor, but it effectively underlines her faith in science and bodies. Directed by Brad Silberling, written by Dana Stevens and beautifully shot by John Seale, the film is thick with resonant imagery. The angels wear long black...overcoats, hang out in the L.A. public library, listening to the murmurs of patrons' thoughts (a specific reference to Wenders), sit atop the Hollywood sign or high rise construction sites, and begin each day at the beach, where they hear a heavenly chorus accompanying the light. Dennis Franz plays an earthy fallen angel and Cage's advisor (Peter Falk's part in Wings)... - Cindy Fuchs