Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Beautiful Creatures, written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, is a breath of fresh air in the fantasy genre. Actually to categorise it in any certain genre would not do it justice. This is film that is much more of an coming of age drama than film about spells, casters or other supernatural stuff. At it's core there is a sort of an Romeo and Juliet -type lovestory but with a magical twist. There has been made fair comparisioins to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga, but Kami Garcia's and Margaret Stohl's take on a forbidden love between supernatural and mortal is much more relaxed, cooler and has welcome amounts of black humour in it too. All of those things which many of Twilight films did not have. Only similarity these films do have in common is that they both has their focus on teenagers and especilly the forbidden love. Those who are looking only for action or special effects will be quite possibly disappointed with Beautiful Creatures. LaGravenese's pacing is surprisingly laid back and allows actors to breath life into the scenes and their characters. He is a director who has finally created a completely different kind of fantasy-film. This is a film which relies more of it's characters than any set pieces or stunts and it must go in a filmhistory as one of the most groundbreaking achievements of it's kind.

Beautiful Creatures is at times extremely campy and hilarious film to watch and you can tell that it was meant to be that way. It never forgets to have fun and it never takes itself too seriously. LaGravanese clearly made some of the characters and moments in the story intentionally over the top. Especially the actors are aware of this and they do have fun with their roles. These are larger than life caricatures and that is the way they are should be in here. Actors like Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson and Emmy Rossum turn their over the top performances into a something highly entertaining and delicious. But when it comes to acting in this film it is the young stars that make this one truly alive. Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert are a match made in heaven as an actors and their chemistry works brilliantly. They bring humour, lightness and raw authentic emotional power into their performances. Both of these actors are major talents and has potential to become something truly great in future, not that they aren't already.

One of the Twilight's major flaws was the chemistry between Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart that seemed to be completely absent. They just lacked emotional depth that would made us care about their relationship or how it all ends. That is not the case here. Maybe comparing Beautiful Creatures to Twilight is a bit pointless. These are stories and films that are quite opposites when it comes quality of the acting or the screenplay. Richard LaGravenese has a true talent as a writer and his dialogue has a nice flow which put a smile upon my face. He is also director with a vision and who knows how to handle his actors. I mentioned earlier that there are not that many special effects, and i felt that it did not need them that much, in this film but when few of them appear they are more than impressive. In film's impressive climax LaGravenese builds a fantastic stormy set piece that in my books is up there as one of the greatest visual set pieces made in recent years.

This is a pleasantly small film in it's scale, while it still raises a few serious more philosophical questions about life, being a outsider as an teenager, religion, love and i appreciate it's take on a world of magic and casters. At times i felt that the film reminded me of Tim Burton's brilliant Dark Shadows, but in the end that did not end up as an distraction for me at all. If you like fantasy with meaty characters and enjoy these kind of films and stories, then i can assure you that Beautiful Creatures is more than worth to see. It has enchanting atmosphere, great cast, unbelievably moody cinematography by legendary Philippe Rousselot and so many other elements in it to make it worth to see that i consider this film as a major winner. I had a blast while watching it and i did find the world it portrays a very interesting and well concieved. This is a good and rare example of a more character driven fantasy film that has also very impressive screenplay and cast to die for. I highly recommend this one. I will not hesitate to call this film a masterpiece. Beautiful Creatures is one of my personal favourites as a film and i find it's world endlessly fascinating to watch. What else can i say, this film is a must see.