Sorry Angel is more aesthetic than substantive.

Its magnetic cast — adorned in and surrounded by lush period French fashion from the recent past —  meander through the shallow slices of life that comprise most of the duration. Too few of these slices are all that filling and fulfilling on their own, and they don’t add up to a sum greater than the parts, making for a pondering but ponderous meal.   

Sorry Angel‘s a series of vignettes, each involving an extended interaction between one member of the central couple and a jumble of their contemporaries, exploring how the intrinsic, inextricable interplay between pleasure and pain, beauty and devastation were endemic to sex and desire during the AIDs epidemic.  These scenes seem to be designed as a collection of character sketches, intended to ultimately paint some sort of macro portrait that never fully forms, and the scraps left over lack sufficient insight and enlightenment to work on their own. Without stringing together these disparate moments to build to something more, they — and, in turn, the movie itself — start to feel like wandering, aimless excursions, not stops along a cohesively-constructed itinerary. 

As a whole, Sorry Angel‘s missing a narrative thrust, thematic heft, and emotional depth.