"Snow Angels" starts out under a cloud of gloom. From there, things just get uglier.

In the opening scene of David Gordon Green's latest film, a high school band is clomping on a snowy football field when practice is interrupted by gunfire from nearby woods. The film then flashes back several weeks to tell us what the shooting is about.

Based on a novel by Stewart O'Nan, "Snow Angels" is an unhappy slice of doublewide life set in a tiny Pennsylvania burg where, apparently, the sun never shines and the snow never melts. The rotten weather seems to have an effect on the citizenry, most of whom are miserable.

Annie (Kate Beckinsale) is a single mother who works as a waitress. She tries to do her best by her young daughter, Tara (Grace Hudson). But money is tight and her ex-husband, Glenn (Sam Rockwell), isn't much help.

The alcoholic Glenn tried to kill himself when their marriage broke up. Now he's got religion and is on the wagon. But he still can't hold a job and harbors dreams of getting back together with Annie.

That isn't going to happen. Annie is having a joyless affair with the husband (Nicky Katt) of her friend and fellow waitress (Amy Sedaris).

All this is observed by a high schooler, Arthur (Michael Angarano), who plays trombone in the marching band. Annie used to be Arthur's babysitter; now they work together at the restaurant.

Arthur has his own woes — his mother (Jeanetta Arnett) has thrown out his father (Griffin Dunne), a college instructor with a wandering eye.

The only bright spot in Arthur's glum life is his friendship with a new girl in school, the delightfully nerdy Lila (Olivia Thirlby). How glum? Don't forget the whole movie is leading up to those gunshots.

Under the direction of Green ("George Washington," "All the Real Girls," "Undertow") "Snow Angels" has been very well acted. Rockwell's Glenn — a sad loser with a repressed angry streak — is unlike anything he's ever done. Beckinsale somehow manages to look real and ethereal. Katt and Sedaris are dead on as a blue collar couple. Angarano and Thirlby alone are worth the price of admission.

But you can't help feeling the movie stacks the deck against anybody actually enjoying life. We know from the outset that bad things are going to happen; the only question is which relationships is going to explode into something horribly violent.