This is a surprisingly sweet, even a wholesome film. The family that Angel /Molly has found on the streets is better than the family that abandoned her, and that seems to be the case for the entire cast of characters. You get this sense of a community of oddballs, ostracized for their sexuality or for unknown reasons, who have somehow found each other. There is so much care for each other. The killer is one of those 80s movie killers, trying to rid the world of sin, but the movie never once applies a sense of shame to its sex workers and other eccentrics. The killer is wrong to see them the way he does. They are all so human and so kind to one another. We were kind of clueless about a lot of things in the 80s, and the movie can be forgiven for eliding the truly sad realities of drug use and street life, because its mission isn't to show tragic hookers with hearts of gold, seeking redemption. It doesn't romanticize that life either. The people who meet and care about Angel want to get her off the streets because she is a damn child, but they don't judge her, they just protect her until she can do that. I also loved how clear the film is that she's actually a child. There were so many moments where she did something or reacted in a way that was so realistically 15 years old. I was surprised by this movie. It was . . . charming.
Review of Angel
