Beautiful Creatures Review

Words By

• Mad Dog Bradley

Director Richard LaGravenese (who also adapted Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s novel for the screen) helms this dark-magic romantic fantasy, and it’s surprisingly better than the unfair label with which it’s been slapped (yep, you know the one: it just wants to be another damn Twilight).

High schooler Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) lives in the small, often steamy southern US town of Gatlin, a place of Bible-bashing, bitchy exes and late parents, but has always wanted to relocate, and yet this desire takes a backseat when he meets mysterious new student Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert, Jane Campion’s daughter), whose shadowy family virtually own the community, even though her dad Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons having fun and not hamming) barely leaves the rambling homestead. Macon insists that Lena not let Ethan get his romantic hooks into her but it’s all too late, and soon we’re into prophecy and destiny territory as we build to ‘caster’ Lena’s impending 16th birthday, and other characters intrude, including naughty, flame-eyed cousin Ridley (Emmy Rossum) and local fire-and-brimstone specialist Mrs Lincoln (Emma Thompson going over the top a bit).

Using a witty script, offering some wry detail (like Ethan’s love for the locally-banned book Slaughterhouse-Five) and with a fine supporting cast (especially Viola Davis as Amma, Ethan’s librarian ‘aunt’), this surely isn’t the film you’re expecting at all, and it’s also impressive that the virtually unknown (when this was actually made, that is) Englert and Ehrenreich are so strong - even if he sometimes looks like an animated cartoon character.