{"id":5230,"date":"2013-03-10T18:15:28","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T01:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=5230"},"modified":"2013-03-11T15:55:45","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T22:55:45","slug":"beautiful-creatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/beautiful-creatures\/","title":{"rendered":"“Beautiful Creatures”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, from the novel by Kami Garcia, starring Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, and Viola Davis.<\/p>\n

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A MODERN FAIRY TALE<\/p>\n

After reviewing \u201cThe Gatekeepers\u201d for this web site, I wanted to see some fantasy, something light, so I checked out \u201cBeautiful Creatures.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another reason is that one reviewer said that Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson make a meal of the scenery.\u00a0 I love both and enjoy them in anything, and listening to Jeremy Irons\u2019 voice with its oily, James Mason-smooth, rich delivery.\u00a0\u00a0 If anything, maybe this film will get teens to read.<\/p>\n

It is a modern fairy tale in which the sought after young girl is not a princess but a witch who comes from a long line of witches and warlocks.\u00a0\u00a0 Except they\u2019re not called \u201cwitches\u201d but \u201ccasters\u201d as in casting spells.\u00a0 Not casters like wheels for moving furniture around.\u00a0 \u201cCreatures\u201d stars two unknown (to me, anyway) actors, Alice Englert as Lena Duchannes, the caster, and her teen-age suitor, Ethan Wate played by Alden Ehrenreich, who has the endearing vocal inflections and mannerisms of a young Leonardo diCaprio.\u00a0 Alice Englert is the daughter of filmmaker Jane Campion; Alden Ehrenreich is said to have been discovered by Stephen Spielberg at a friend\u2019s barmitzvah.\u00a0 If he\u2019s never acted before, you wouldn\u2019t know it by his portrayal of Ethan.\u00a0 He\u2019s a natural.<\/p>\n

Ethan lives in a small, moss-covered town in North Carolina. He wants to get out, and sees college as a way.\u00a0 His only escape is books- good ones- literature.\u00a0 Real books- paper backs.\u00a0 He reads Vonnegut, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Salinger, Bukowski, and more.\u00a0 His mother is allegedly dead; his father non-compos-mentis with Alzheimer\u2019s and never appears.\u00a0 Ethan has been cared for since infancy by Amma, played by Viola Davis in a familiar role as a wise, spiritual, all-knowing woman, who lives in a spooky house in the swamps.\u00a0 She is the town librarian, dresses in the latest African chic: prints, bangles, etc, and has a key to a hidden vault of secrets reminiscent of Dan Brown\u2019s \u201cDa Vinci Code.\u201d\u00a0 Part of the town\u2019s history goes back to the Civil War and each year the townsfolk take part in a Civil War re-enactment of the Battle of Honey Hill.\u00a0 There are flashbacks to that era shown in dreamy, surreal scenes in which a young woman a la Scarlett O\u2019Hara, loses her young Confederate soldier to Union fire- but spookily brings him back to life.\u00a0 (Could it be? . . .)<\/p>\n

One of the things I loved about \u201cCreatures\u201d is that it shies away from stereotypes as much as possible in a fairy tale:\u00a0 Lena, as a caster, is not a pale, anorexic, willowy girl who dresses in long, clinging, black dresses.\u00a0 Though Ethan has been seeing her this way in recurring dreams, with long, black tendrils hiding her face.\u00a0 In real life, Lena is the picture of rosy-cheeked health and dresses like a typical teen.\u00a0\u00a0 Anyway, seems she has been kicked out of every high school from here to Hades and ends up a senior at Ethan\u2019s.\u00a0 She\u2019s the newby, and is taunted and bullied by her bland, blond classmates. (They suffer the consequences.)<\/p>\n

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Uncle Macon (Jeremy Irons) lays down the law to Lena and Ethan.<\/p><\/div>\n

Lena lives with her Uncle Macon Ravenswood (Jeremy Irons).\u00a0 From the exterior, the house looks like the Munster mansion- all ropey vines, a squeaky, baroque, wrought-iron gate, a long, winding road o\u2019er shadowed with cypresses festooned with Spanish Moss.\u00a0 Ethan pays an uninvited visit hoping to talk to her. \u00a0He is the only one willing to befriend her, having, like I said, seen her in his dreams.\u00a0 The heavily carved door is, of course, somehow ajar.\u00a0 He pushes his way in.\u00a0 We expect to see a dark room, dimly lit with wall sconces and candelabras; overstuffed, 17th<\/sup> century furniture, including a mahogany dining table with scrolled legs, ending in dragon claws, clutching amber balls. But what a delightful surprise!\u00a0 It is nothing you\u2019d expect. \u00a0When Uncle Macon appears, he is elegant- suavely dressed in cream silks, his grey mane swept back in deep waves.\u00a0 He speaks in well-modulated, orotund tones.<\/p>\n

Naturally, there is a curse that has to be broken if Ethan is to get the girl before she goes over to the dark side when she turns 16 in a few weeks, epitomized by her cousin Sidney Duchannes (Emmy Rossum), who wears slinky, red dresses, shades, and speeds around in a sporty red convertible.\u00a0 You know she\u2019s evil when she causes a squad car to suddenly career off the road and burst into flames.\u00a0 Another hint is that her eyes became supra-naturally luminescent immediately before she executes an evil deed.\u00a0 The introduction of Sidney was, I thought, an unnecessary element, except she was a device to influence Ethan\u2019s best friend and get Lena to come over to the dark side.\u00a0 But the family relationships got confusing.\u00a0 What with shape-shifting Emma Thomson as Mrs. Lincoln, the town radical fundamentalist Christian AND Serafine, Macon\u2019s dark, caster of a sister, and Lena’s mother, as well as a bunch of other ageless relatives:\u00a0 Gramma (Eileen Atkins), Aunt Del (Margo Martindale), a little-seen brother, etc.<\/p>\n

One of the high-lights of the film takes place at a banquet at Macon\u2019s.\u00a0 Everyone\u2019s been called together to convince the young lovers to break it off.\u00a0 Ethan finds himself seated at the sumptuous table headed by Macon, with Lena and all the relatives.\u00a0 Everything\u2019s quiet.\u00a0 In the background we hear the theme from the 1959 movie, \u201cA Summer Place.\u201d \u00a0Broke me up. \u00a0Then the room starts spinning around.\u00a0 I expected everyone to end up as butter when it stopped.<\/p>\n

Amma shows the pair the secret vault in the library where the history of the Duchannes and Ravenswood families are kept in leather-bound tomes that only Lena is privy to.\u00a0 Spells are cast, Ethan loses his memory, Lena stays in her room and pouts.\u00a0 It\u2019s as though they\u2019d never met.\u00a0 Soon they all gear up for the re-enactment.\u00a0 There\u2019s some shape-shifting going on, someone is accidentally shot dead with a real bullet and is brought back to life in another body.\u00a0 Serafina?\u00a0 Next time you\u2019re in the woods and see a tangle of thick vines choking a tree, think of her.\u00a0 Yes, it did get a little hard to follow.\u00a0 Ethan drives down the road, off to college.\u00a0 Lena is in her room studying.\u00a0 She looks up.\u00a0 Her eyes reveal her new state of being.\u00a0 The movie ends with nothing resolved, but you come away feeling that somehow, the young lovers will end up together.<\/p>\n

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Written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, from the novel by Kami Garcia, starring Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, and Viola Davis.   A MODERN FAIRY TALE After reviewing \u201cThe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"