I am curious, what is it with Hollywood’s obsession with small towns and love?
I don’t want to come across as hater; I love love. beautiful, cheesy, hopeless love stories that fill my heart Legend of Zelda style, but don’t you think it is getting a little old?
Riding on the coattails of the supernatural young adult trend, Beautiful Creatures, starring Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert, is a hopeless love story about two teenagers who can’t be together due to family and supernatural interference in a small town full of myths, prejudice and drama fueled by boredom. (I know this sounds like the plot of Twilight, but stick with me.)
With her fate not her own, Lena moves to a small southern town where her old family name is tainted and her emo looks make her stand out next to the processed wannabes of her new high school. Oh and she is a “caster” (not a witch, that is made perfectly clear). The only hope she has ever had at a normal life, lies in Ethan, the small town heart-throb who rebels by reading banned books and wants nothing more than to get out of Dodge. Their intertwined fates leads the view down a looooong, drawn out path of forbidden love and self discovery.
For me, this movie seems forced, like they were trying so hard to be the southern version of Twilight. From the casting, to the acting, to the twisted love, it is mirroring the “formula” laid out by Twilight: Find attractive, no name actors, put them in the middle of nowhere, give one of them a supernatural ability but with a modern twist that is convenient for the story that the other is totally not creeped out by, thrown in some family drama, and townies that can’t act and you have the millennial version of a Nicholas Sparks movie.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9rjhB7KWEc]
As you know, consistency is important to me in a movie and true to form, this movie has a REALLY big one. When telling a story, you have to either pick one side, like in Twilight we follow Bella, or no narration and everyone gets to be the star. The movie starts with a narration and perspective of the Ethan character. He goes on and on about how he can’t wait to get out of town, hates how vapid his ex is and how he just wants something more. Somewhere along the plot, the narration and perspective changes to Lena’s magical and emotional rollercoaster. How does that happen!?
Overall you can look forward to cool and awkward special effects (seriously spinning around a table for 5 minutes), lots of praying, a decent love story with a good ending, and the combination of good vs evil and the emotional tug of war of young magical love.
I encourage you to see it, just wait until it comes out on DVD to experience it.
6 out of 11
About the movie:
Synopsis: Ethan longs to escape his small Southern town. He meets a mysterious new girl, Lena. Together, they uncover dark secrets about their respective families, their history and their town.
Director: Richard Lagravenese
Produced: Alcon Entertainment, Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Starring: Ethan Wate, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, Thomas Mann, Emma Thompson.
Rated: PG-13
Release: Feb. 14th 2013
[SlideDeck2 id=9269]
