With his first three films -- George Washington, All the Real Girls and Undertow -- writer-director David Gordon Green swiftly established his aesthetic: His films explore small-town life in the modern world, set in communities large enough to feel lost in but small enough to feel confining; they're all shot with a flat-yet-artful look that finds art in the real; they each feature strong performances that manage to make an impression without ever feeling forced; their dialogue is natural and human yet engaged and energetic. Snow Angels, Green's fourth film, keeps within that range, telling the story of lives and loves lost and found in a small New England town at winter time, but it's also a departure; it's Green's first adaptation (of a novel by Stewart O'Nan), and with actors like Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale and Griffin Dunne, it features his biggest-name cast to date. It's still a film that's identifiably his, even as it has the potential to turn him from a lesser-known indie director into an A-level dramatist.

Glenn (Rockwell) and Annie (Beckinsale) Marchand are separated; Annie's trying to raise their daughter Tara, while Glenn's born again with Jesus and killing himself slowly with alcohol. Annie works at the local Chinese restaurant -- the sort of place where the staff have to wear pseudo-Asian tops -- alongside Arthur (Michael Angarano), a teen she used to babysit. Arthur's parents (Dunne and Jeanetta Arnette) are splitting up, even as Arthur's becoming friends and more with new transfer student Lila (Olivia Thirlby). Both Glenn and Annie are leaning on their parents -- Glenn's moved back in with his folks, pretty much, while Annie's relying on her mom as cheap childcare while juggling work and an affair with Nate, (Nicky Katt), a co-worker's husband. Things grind along for all the characters -- the blend of small victories and petty defeats that makes up life -- until, one day, one simple thing goes horribly, terribly wrong. And everyone, everything is changed.

Snow Angels' plot may evoke other small-town dramas -- I felt echoes of Atom Egoyan's Exotica, for one -- but at the same time, the film speaks to much more than any plot synopsis can capture. Many of the characters here are in that miserable middle ground where you have a child and yet are a child -- having maturity thrust upon you and wrenched away in the span of a few short minutes. And John Lennon's classic aphorism -- that life is what happens while you're making other plans -- is acted out as well, from Annie's affair with the kind-yet callow Nate to Arthur's slow, sweet relationship with Lila.

If there's a weakness in Snow Angels -- or, rather, one moment that's not as superbly crafted and impressive as all the others around it -- it might be in the characterization of Thirlby's Lila. The quirky-cute, smart-hot plucky life-affirming sprite female character is fast becoming a cliché in modern indie film -- look to Natalie Portman's dime-thin characterization in Garden State for an example of the phenomenon at it's worst -- and while Thirlby has a certain presence, Lila isn't as fully-crafted as some of the other lead characters.

But as ever, Green's skill and inate craft shine through, from the real unforced quality of the dialogue to the carefully-wrought performances. Beckinsale depicts Annie a good-hearted, slightly-overwhelmed woman; Rockwell brings Glenn's mix of good-natured charm and badly-intentioned confusion to life; Angarano makes Arthur feel like a true-life teen, rendered both comfortable and afflicted by his parent's money and separation. And Green, adapting O'Nan's novel, not only captures two seemingly polar experiences --- the warm confusion of young romance and the cold understanding of love's end -- but makes us understand and see how they are linked, even while holding out the cruel/kind possibility that they might not be.

I find lately (and never more so than at Sundance, where it's easy to feel smothered by a drama-lanche of pathos and passion) that when I go into a drama, I want -- no, I need -- to feel like it can convey the real nature of life: How wonderful it can be, and how horrible; how the is joy, and there is pain; how there are elegant dreams we can aspire to and ugly facts we must face; that the only thing as certain as death is the necessity of the fight against it. Snow Angels -- human, humane, funny, tragic, artful, real -- is one of the strongest dramas of Sundance 2007; more importantly, it has the craft and power to stand as one of the best dramas of the year, period.

Tags: sundance2007