Beautiful Creatures a realistic fantasy
There are two things that redeem Beautiful Creatures from the fetid slop pile of supernatural teen romance.
The first is that quiet edge of subversion afforded by a fantasy premise: Key human beliefs such as faith, free will and true love can be ridiculed by non-mortals as absurd, which is always fun.
The second thing that makes Beautiful Creatures more than a Southern Gothic take on Twilight is the presence of two towering talents: Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons.
Though they’re really just supporting players to the two pretty, young leads — Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert — these two British thespians sink their bicuspids into the material with such a firm bite, they draw credible dramatic blood.
And for a movie that tells the story of a cute young jock who falls for a brooding teen witch, one can’t underrate the value of anything credible because so much of what we see is insane.
Based on the novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the tale unfolds against the backdrop of Gatlin County. Located in the heart of the South Carolina, Gatlin County is the kind of place time forgot.
“People don’t leave Gatlin,” says Ethan Wate (Ehrenreich) in the opening voice-over, suggesting the central challenge of stasis. Indeed, even though Ethan is a good-looking young man with endless potential, the chances of him leaving Gatlin are small.
The problem is complacency and safety: Ethan’s life is pretty easy. The prettiest girl in school likes him. He’s got good friends and a loyal and compassionate caregiver with a holy aura named Amma (Viola Davis).
But Ethan has trouble sleeping: He keeps dreaming of a darkhaired beauty that eludes his grasp. He draws pictures of his mystery love, and then, out of nowhere, she appears in the flesh as a new member of his class.
Lena Duchannes (Englert) lives in Ravenwood Manor — long-rumoured to be a residence of Satan and his minions thanks to centuries of post-Civil war lore.
With her long black tangle of curly hair, Lena is ostracized by the pink lip-gloss blonds who see her as a freak show unworthy of the cutest boy in school.
Fortunately, Ethan is a smart kid with natural charms who isn’t a slave to public opinion. He reads Kurt Vonnegut, after all, so when he spots Lena flipping the pages of noted misanthrope Charles Bukowski, he feels a kindred spirit and decides to pursue the oddball with the bad attitude.
Director Richard LaGravenese (Freedom Writers, Living Out Loud) handles the courtship with a gentle touch, ensuring the kids find full dimension within the constraints of expectation.
Ethan is predictably cute, but he’s never fully heroic. He’s allowed to be a regular guy who talks about regular guy things, and the same thing goes for Lena.
It’s only when the movie takes its supernatural turn that things get a little more untenable, but a whole lot more entertaining.
Though there is no Endora and Darrin of Bewitched, the idea of a regular mortal falling for a witch — or as they say in this movie, “caster” — has plenty of appeal because all our bumbling, fumbling actions suddenly look quaint and childlike.
For Lena, the big dilemma boils down to a curse. All the women in her family turn to the “dark side” when they turn 16, and Lena doesn’t want to hurt Ethan when she assumes her full power. She feels she will be a dark witch, but Ethan believes in free will. He tells her nothing can ever tear them apart, and little by little, she begins to believe in their love.
But really, how many mortal-witch matchups ever make it? These star-crossed romances always involve sacrifice of some kind, so Beautiful Creatures comes down to a grand finale that forces a showdown between good and evil.
Because LaGravenese is committed to finding the most human twists and turns, Beautiful Creatures always feels grounded in our world — even when it’s roaming around in romantic fantasy.
Better yet, when we do leave the ground and take a spin in supernatural crazy town, we have Thompson and Irons pulling the strings and flapping their wings with all the grace and finesse experience allows.
Though it’s still a shade too long at two hours, Beautiful Creatures understood what it had to do and what it had to be, to cast the right spell on its target audience of hormone-besieged teens.