In this bleak small-town drama about the aftermath of a child’s death, too-young parents Ethan (Thomas Dekker) and Cindy (Lynn Collins) are a space case and a drunk, respectively. While in the care of his well-intentioned but unprepared dad, toddler Nate is left alone for a bit too long and wanders away in the middle of winter.
Local mourners in this Rocky Mountain burg are mostly hickville tropes: the trampy, chain-smoking waitress (Collins); the world-weary diner owner (Mira Sorvino) and her noble but flawed cop ex-husband (Joseph Morgan); the local DA with a sad back story of his own (Jeremy Piven); and the town’s one functional couple, in this case, lesbians (Elizabeth McGovern and Kate Walsh).
Director Gaby Dellal gets respectable performances all around, especially from Dekker as the hapless, grief-stricken father, but they can’t elevate “Angels Crest,” based on Leslie Schwartz’s novel, beyond its one obvious and depressing note: It is very sad when a small child dies.