SOURCE: "Jane Campion's 'Angel' Is Another Quirky Soul," in New York Times, May 19, 1991, p. 22.

In the following review, McDonagh draws comparisons between An Angel at My Table and Campion's previous works, arguing that the director is kinder to her subject in the film under review.

"Just show me an ordinary person," says the director Jane Campion, "and I'll show you a troubled soul." And she should know; troubled souls are her stock in trade. Her first feature, Sweetie, revolved around two warring sisters: the dour Kay, who has nightmares about trees with human powers, and Sweetie, who is exuberant, impulsive and destructively out of control. The heroine of Miss Campion's new film, An Angel at My Table—adapted from the autobiography of the renowned New Zealand poet and novelist Janet Frame—is a prickly introvert who spent eight years in a mental institution and much of the rest...