BEAUTIFUL CREATURES
US, 2013, 124 minutes, Colour.
Alden Ehreneich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, Viola Davis,Eileen Atkins, Emmy Rossum.
Directed by Richard La Gravenese.
More young love and anguish in the midst of mysteries beyond this world. The post-Twilight era is upon us. This film is based on the first of four novels, Beautiful Creatures, Darkness, Chaos, Redemption, by Kami Garcia, which have proven popular.
In many ways, it is a load of old cobblers – or a load of new cobblers.
We suspend disbelief to accept that there is a mysterious family from the Carolinas, some of whom are powerful Casters (a dignified word for ‘witch’). The girls have the choice at age sixteen to accept their nature (good or evil) and find their place for life as Casters. Lena (Alice Englert – who is the daughter of Jane Campion) turns up in town, goes to school, is responsible for some eerie events (glass blowing out of the classroom windows). She is being protected by her uncle, Macon Ravenswood (Jeremy Irons sporting a Southern accent), so that her choice will be for the good rather than the evil planned by her madly vindictive mother, Saraphine (Emma Thompson). There is also an evil cousin, Ridley (Emmy Rossum). When they all assemble for dinner, it is not a genteel affair!
The other focus of the film is a young lad, brought up by his grandmother, Ethan (a very cheerful, often grinning, Alden Ehrenreich). Needless to say, he is smitten by Lena and does his best to help her, but he is no match for the dark arts. (He is abducted and is mute and bound at that mad meal.)
So, a mixture of Carolina normality with the kind of problems we saw in the Twilight series. But Alice Englert is more sympathetic than Kristen Stewart and Alden Ehrenreich more energetic than Robert Pattinson. And the supporting cast is much more interesting, especially Emma Thompson, with Saraphine taking the form of a local fire-and-brimstone Christian lady. Her first scene where she appears, denouncing the condemned in Church and her transformation to her real self is a high point of the film. But, so are her other appearances. She proves that a performance that is over the top can be hugely entertaining.
Box office returns will determine whether we move on to the next episodes in the novels.
- The title? Expectations?
- Fantasy, Gothic touches, romance? In the US context?
- South Carolina, the town, school, students, gossip? Accusations of devil worship? Homes, the musical score?
- Ethan’s story, wanting to get out of the town, his age, school, family, gossip, the encounters with Catalina, the car accident?
- Lena, in class, breaking the windows, fearing she was a witch? A locket? The apparitions of the Civil War, her 16th birthday approaching? Her mother, embodied in Mrs Lincoln? Her mother wanting Lena to oust the humans from earth, leaving only their own kind?
- Make on, his reputation, devil worshipping? The bond with Amma? The Casters and their skills?
- Ridley, in the town, Serafina and Lena? Mrs Lincoln? The relationship with A link?
- The Civil War, the visions? Casters? Genevieve and Ethan in the 19th century? Ethan’s death, revived? Genevieve and her cursing the family?
- And, as a seer, her work in the library, knowledge of the books, which could undo the curse? Contact with Ethan?
- The re-enactment of the Civil War? Ridley and Link? The bullet? Lena and the Tornado? Ethan, revived? The execution re-enactment? Make on and his disguise?
- The complexity of the interactions, deaths, survival, revival, the bodies, Serafina imprisoned, being freed?
- Six months later, Am and Link? Seeing the burnt sign for the town? Ethan and Lena and the resolution?