Beautiful Creatures
Richard LaGravenese
The story: Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert) is a “caster” with growing supernatural powers and when she turns 16, her fate – whether she is claimed for light or dark – will be decided. Complicating matters is a blossoming romance with a regular high school boy, Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich), against the wishes of her uncle, Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons). Based on the 2009 young adult novel of the same name by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

Nature abhors a vacuum and so does show business. With the conclusion of the hugely successful Twilight film franchise after Breaking Dawn – Part 2 last November, the hunt is on for the next breakout hit combining supernatural creatures and young love.
Instead of vampires and werewolves, there are witches, magic spells and a powerful curse.
And attempting to replace Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in the popularity stakes are relative newcomers Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert, daughter of film-makers Jane Campion and Colin Englert.
Ehrenreich has the easier task here as Ethan is, for the most part, a sunny smiley boy who wins over Lena with his love of banned books and earnest determination. Englert has the tougher job as the pale and mysterious new girl in town who is hiding some very big secrets.
Together, they manage to convey some of the intensity and tempestuousness of young love, a situation that is heightened by the high stakes facing Lena.
When a female member of Lena’s family turns sweet 16, she gets all this power kicking in like an avalanche of hormones and she can either use it for good or evil – but it is not quite in her control how it all turns out.
In the case of her cousin, Ridley (Emmy Rossum from The Phantom Of The Opera, 2004), it was a none-too-subtle transformation from virginal good girl to va-va-voom man-baiting temptress.
This part of the story is problematic as it essentially seems to be driven by a misogynistic fear of female sexuality.
Thank goodness it veers away from that premise to a more palatable message of self-determination as Lena searches for a way to lift the curse on her. The price is, of course, a high one and there is a twist to how it plays out.
Director and screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (writer of The Fisher King, 1991) just about manages to pull the film together, despite some familiar elements and the occasional use of cliches (the gate to Lena’s home is a forbidding design of spreading tree branches which practically screams: “Creepy creatures live here!”).
He also works in some welcome humour in what can easily be an overwrought genre, even slipping in a dig at former American First Lady Nancy Reagan for being scarily formidable.
The supporting cast is credible, with Jeremy Irons as the gruff but protective uncle, Emma Thompson as the rabidly Christian mother of Ethan’s friend who is not all she appears to be, and Viola Davis as Amma, Ethan’s surrogate mother and yet another keeper of secrets.
The film possesses a keen sense of the place it is set in – a small town in the American south – with flashbacks and a re-enactment of a civil war battle being pivotal scenes here.
Englert’s wavering accent can be a little distracting, though.
Still, by the end, you care enough about Lena and Ethan’s story to be curious about the twists and turns ahead in the next three instalments of the Caster Chronicles book series: Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos and Beautiful Redemption.
Hollywood is betting that this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
(ST)