Rating: 7/10
Released: February 2013
Certificate: 12 A
Directors: Richard LaGravenese
Genre: Drama/Romance
Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, Thomas Mann and Zoey Deutch.
Summary: Small town teen Ethan White (Alden Ehrenreich) dreams of escaping his ordinary life until he meets Lena Duchaness (Alice Englert). Although there is one thing keeping them apart – sorcery.
Richard LaGravenese the director of Beautiful Creatures is also known for the films such as The Horse Whisperer, P.S I Love You and The Chronicles of Narnia which all have been very successful and claimed various different film awards.
The film Beautiful Creatures, is a teen romance, arrives hot on the heels of the end of the “Twilight” saga and is clearly trying to emulate the same ideas of the supernatural romance storyline however there is more wit within Beautiful Creatures.
Image: Lena and Ethan.
The couple central to the story are Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich) a bookish, restless teen trapped in his small hometown, a Civil War site, and the new arrival Lena (Alice Englert), niece of Macon Ravenwood, the owner of a forbidding old manor house within the town. The locals regard the Ravenswood’s as devil-worshippers though they are in fact casters (a more pc term for witches). Ethan and Lena fall in love with each other but there’s a snag: he’s a Mortal, and she fears she might hurt him or even worse kill him as on her 16th birthday she will either be “claimed” as a Caster, to go to the light or dark side. She fears she will be claimed by the dark side due to the families past history. The couple try all they can do to prevent this happening so that they can stay together; though there are couple of problems along the way such as Lena’s uncle who does not want them to be together out of fear for his niece; also her evil mother and sister who try to tempt Lena to the darkside in order to make her become one of the most powerful casters to have ever existed.
Image: Ridley Lena’s sister.
In my opinion Beautiful Creatures contains parts of the acclaimed story “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens; such similarities as the romance storyline and the uncle never leaving the house.
I would recommend this film to those who enjoyed the Twilight saga as well as those who enjoy the drama and romance genre. The only downfalls for this film though are the fact that the accents sound like that of Forest Gump which distracted me several times and that it is a bit slow at parts.