February Catch-up Part 2: Beautiful Creatures & I Give It a Year

Beautiful Creatures

With the Twilight Saga done and dusted there is understandably a desperate clamouring by the major film studios to find the next supernatural literary phenomenon to adapt into a moody romance and thereby hopefully take the world’s teens for millions and millions of dollars. While cynical producers may have chosen Beautiful Creatures to adapt with this in mind, thankfully it seems to have been made by people with a little more humour and humanity.

Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) is a big dreamer in a small-dreaming town in the deep south of America. When gothic misfit Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert) turns up at school and the other students start to gossip, we find ourselves immediately in familiar Twilight territory, just with the genders reversed.

Turns out Lena is a fledgling witch whose big issue is that her undeveloped powers will be claimed for either good or evil on her sixteenth birthday depending on her true nature. Trouble is, like all 15-year-olds, she has no idea what her true nature is. Her uncle, Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons) is adamant she will be a force for good. As she and Ethan become close, the dark side of Lena’s family show up including her mother Sarafine (played like a force of nature by Emma Thompson) to complicate matters further.

Comparisons to Twilight are exhaustive: the romance between a human and a supernatural being, the supernatural as metaphor for teen troubles and the humans vs. ‘monsters’ dichotomy are all well-trodden themes – even the moody weather of its towns gives the light of both films a similar tone. Despite Beautiful Creatures using its predecessor as a template, the main distinction to be drawn is that this film has more of a sense of humour, less of an anti-sex subtext and generally a more down-to-earth feel than that of Twilight.

This works both for and against it.

The couple at the centre of the film are very likeable and drawn with a streak of self-awareness of the ludicrousness of their story’s supernatural themes. This helps them to never descend into the kind of stern self-torture of the straight-faced vampire fable. While this lends a better believability to their relationship, it waters down the power of its bond somewhat. Like it or not, although the life or death love of the Bella and Edwards of the genre seem sometimes like a melodramatic lie, I think teenagers recognise the desperate cling of first love best when the stakes are high. Adults may understand that Ethan and Lena are a better rounded couple but I think a younger audience are slightly less interested. This may already be showing in Beautiful Creatures box office figures, which – unfortunately – are nowhere near that of the first Twilight film.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the film is tongue-in-cheek. Both Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons establish the good vs. evil battle with their weighty presences and no character or funny one-liner ever invites you to make fun of Lena’s predicament. It just isn’t as gripping as a film like this needs to be. It is easy to mock the young for being frivolous but however fleeting it may be, regarding idealised love, they are deadly serious. And this film isn’t deadly serious.

I can see why middle-aged reviewers warm to Beautiful Creatures more than other coming-of-age teen fantasies and, me now being the adult side of the dividing line, I’d sooner watch it again than another Twilight. But I suspect we aren’t the demographic being targeted here. For what it wants to achieve, Beautiful Creatures is fated as a well-meant misfire and I’d be surprised if the next book makes it to the big screen.

I Give It a Year

Second-guessing the ending of this film almost confused me into thinking it had something new to add to the romantic comedy genre instead of actually having nothing new to add to the romantic comedy genre. Will newly married Josh (Rafe Spall) and Nat (Rose Byrne) make it past a year of marriage or will their obvious differences and attraction to the other people in their lives tear their relationship apart?

I definitely know that I want them to divorce, if only on principle (because the film never beguiled me into truly caring); they’re so ill suited that they pretty much hit the rocks the moment they tie the knot. But if the film starts this way, will it move to resolution by the end? Will they sort out their differences? Probably. We’re all used to romcoms convincing unhappy people that their unhappy relationships are worth the crushing disappointment for some deeply buried sliver of ‘love’. But then again as other love interests are introduced and the couple drift further and further apart, I’m being turned again. Is the most subversive and interesting outcome that they do in fact somehow stay together despite belonging apart?

All of this spun me into the most bewildering mind slush that I convinced myself I could be happy if only the outcome of this quandary was to my satisfaction. And when it ended right, I left the cinema with such a sense of resolution that it was only on the way home that I realised I’d been tricked.

I think the reason my brain turned I Give It a Year’s narrative into an epic twisting rollercoaster is because nothing on screen really occupied my attention. It meanders awfully, giving the impression of several improvised vignettes with no strands pointing in any particular direction. As I guessed from the cast list, the funniest turns were given by Stephen Merchant and Tim Key, but even these moments were too ill disciplined to squeeze anything more than smile and seemed isolated from all other scenes as if belonging in a completely different movie.

I’d been away from these kinds of films for so long that I forgot how placid the lighting is. All angles are covered, no shadow is allowed, the whole toolkit of cinematography is rendered utterly anodyne by the bright bright bright.

On a positive note, the characters themselves are likeable, individually. It’s just that there’s no pairing for an audience to root for – no two people that seem to click. Also praiseworthy is Anna Faris who is handed the best-drawn character I’ve ever seen her play. Even if she is a side note, Chloe is certainly the most interesting and warm in the whole film and Faris hits exactly the right note. If we’re rooting for anyone, it’s her.

Overall, I Give It a Year provides no emotional ride to jump on. But on the plus side, it’s sometimes so vacuous that you might find yourself inventing all manner of plot twist dilemmas with which to fill up the time.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

One thing that has caught Hollywood’s imagination in recent years is the idea that European fairytales were originally much more ominous and frightening before they were diluted by Walt Disney in the middle of last century. Consequently, revisionist versions of stories such as Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella are currently all the rage.

Snow White and the Huntsman follows this trend, purporting to be a kind of dark restoration of the original Brothers Grimm tale with a bit of pop-feminism thrown in for good measure.

The most striking thing about the film is its visual style. Costume, colour, light –for the most part it is designed very well and knits the story’s world together in a convincing way. However, what becomes a nagging problem is that it never quite envelops the audience in the way it should. I didn’t know for sure until 5 minutes ago that director Rupert Sanders is a prolific maker of TV adverts but I was quietly confident. Dissolving fruit, porcelain skin, trees with consciously creeping branches, sped up flower-blooming, parted lips, hand bras – sitting there in the cinema, I got the urge to buy perfume about 7 times and didn’t know why.

Despite the distracting ‘buy me’ imagery, there is plenty more that undermines the escapism that a fantasy film like this is designed to provide. Foremost is the acting of Kristen Stewart , who isn’t all that convincing as a warrior princess. Firmly established in the Twilight saga as our age’s passive sap of a female character, Stewart carries her baffled face from those films to this one. Those awkward expressions work for Bella (flawed as that character may be) but not for Snow White.

Having said that, she is not as much to blame as the script, which is full of dodgy “Olde English” and clanging clichés. There’s nothing wrong with clichés – well there is, but the odd short stinging phrase muttered by an action hero on a close-up can work wonders. Here though, the characters are constantly coming out with relentlessly convoluted waffle. It might be funny if delivered ironically, but that isn’t the tone that the film is going for. Great work by Charlize Theron however, who does the best she possibly can with the lines she is given and lends the evil queen Ravenna a good deal of believable scariness with her histrionic delivery i.e. “You will DO THIS for me Huntsman!”

Although the first act is enough to almost give up on the film, it is rescued somewhat by the dwarves who enter the fray at around the 45-minute mark. Actors such as Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins and Eddie Marsden immediately improve the verisimilitude of the story and highlight the lacklustre performances of their taller co-stars. Just the small smirk or grimace or well-timed pause here and there give a much-needed depth and pathos. Their dialogue must be part improvised because it bears no resemblance to that of the other characters. The small talk they provide is often puerile and inconsequential but it at least offers the sense of something real. The trailers avoid the dwarves like their little jokes might undermine the dead seriousness of the piece (and out of context, they might) but in truth, no character does more to ground the film than they do.

Their presence even seems to have a positive effect on the edit and direction, which also dramatically improves about 45 minutes in. Especially effective is a scene where the dwarves sing a lament for one of their number who has died (that’s not a major spoiler). The pacing, which has up to this point been a bit all over the place, settles and a weight is added. It’s like suddenly getting some good earthy nutrition after having your face stuffed with style for an hour. The shot where the camera pans slowly from their campfire high up into the trees and then above to the firefly-specked sky is the single stand-out remarkable moment of the film.

Onto the “empowerment of Snow White’s character” thing which the trailers lean on so heavily. I don’t think it quite works. Besides Stewart’s acting, the big detraction from this thread is the way in which her status as a Princess is reiterated over and over again. Because she is the true heir to the throne, born into royalty, her character has no room to become heroic. She does after all get a troll to go away by just looking at it, get helped out of a deadly forest just because of her value as a royal commodity and is able to break the spell of Ravenna’s power because of her blue blood beauty. None of this she works for, all of it comes part and parcel of being the rightful Queen by God’s divine appointment. If it is her destiny to be the ruler of a Kingdom, there is no option other than fulfilling it. What she learns in the way of fighting skill is taught to her by a man and, once poisoned, she is helplessly paralysed until saved once again by the same man. The traditional Snow White tricolon goes like this “skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony.” You can’t just add “…oh, also the same spirit and defiance as a rose in winter” and automatically make it work as a fable of female empowerment. For one thing it ruins the rule of three. Which isn’t on.

Music. Who am I to criticise the score of 8-time Oscar-nominated James Newton Howard? Well, it is surprising to find that the man responsible is so experienced and highly rated, but I just heard it as simple pastiche. It is less memorable that the scores of other fantasy films and yet somehow more intrusive. It softens the threat by being there too much (but that could just as well be down to the director’s input) and is at best functional.

Maybe all of that sounds too critical because I actually had a good time watching Snow White and the Huntsman. Sure it fails to deliver certain things and plays like a polished commercial but it’s a fairly entertaining way of spending a bank holiday afternoon nevertheless. I mean hey, what else is there to do, watch the Queen slow-waving her way down the Thames on a glorified barge in the rain for 5 hours? Don’t be silly.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)

There’s something alienating about the new Twilight film. The super sheen teen saga has been derided by the majority of critics ever since its first instalment but I went in for it; partial to the first, patient through the second and pleased with the third, something about the romance and updated vampire folklore struck a chord with me. However Breaking Dawn (part one) proved more than a let down. The glitz of its set pieces and the milking dry of any hint of love or death almost convinced me the critics were right all along.

They weren’t though, not to begin with. And it wasn’t simply because I was still a teen (just) when Twilight the First came out. In that film, the awkward unease with which Bella (Kristen Stewart) squeezes into a new school and peer group comes across effectively, probably owing as much to Stewart’s own discomfort at acting as to the actual acting itself. The obsessive calf love and ferocious desire to remain in it – and young – forever is also piercing and painful (in a good way) to watch.

What changed gradually from film to film is partly to do with the storyline. The second film in particular begins to challenge the notion that Bella and Edward’s relationship is pure, infallible and even reciprocal. Not because of the hyped introduction of werewolf Jake as a love interest but because Edward begins to treat Bella like dirt. Not only does she suffer it gladly, by the third film his behaviour has been incorporated into their relationship as if it were one of its natural ingredients. As somebody whom the books passed by, I can only hope the final film sees Bella realising her mistake sharpish and serving her blood-junkie-lover a divorce inclusive of supernatural restraining order… or else a sharpish stake to the heart.

Anyway, back to this film. I saw it in the tiny room of an inner-city multiplex, the likes of which I’d never experienced before and only seen in films like Taxi Driver. Little over thirty seats, wider than deep with audio speakers not up to much. The worst thing was the small screen/close proximity combination, like watching TV with your nose against it (except not really that bad). The aisle down the middle also meant that any hope of an optimum viewing angle were best left at the miniscule door, a porthole with less soundproofing than a greenhouse window (except not really that bad). Wow, on to the film.

A metaphor for the room it was presented in, Breaking Dawn is one of the most alienating pictures I’ve seen in a while. Things like the stretched wedding scene and all its attached glamour seem contrary to Bella’s original philosophy and create glossy barriers that prevent our engagement with her. Weren’t we supposed to identify with her as a shambling outsider, strong and honest if not a little lonely as a result? All this is forgone in favour of the sentimental romance card – painful to watch (in a bad way). This could be forgivable, or at least ignorable, if it wasn’t for the desperate argument the film seems to be having with itself. “Am I glorifying the notion of love as a slow-motion pinnacle of perfection,” it says. “Or is this character engaged in a struggle between desire, expectation and the pitfalls of loving a blood-sucking monster?” Sure you can have both at the same time, but look to the first film for an example of how delicately this needs to be handled. You can’t play both to the max and hope the audience swoons at the first then undermines the swoon with a nail-biting squirm. The swoons should come unexpected, from the depths of terror so as you’re unsure what it is about revulsion that turns so attractive. Or something.

I’m sure this thing about splitting the final instalment of a series of novels in two when adapted for the screen will become standard practice – when the previous films have been successful and the opportunity arises to eek double profit from a story’s climax, any fine capitalist would. When this decision benefitted Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I was surprised. While the book certainly contains enough material for two films, I thought that the wealth of information left out of the previous films would make it hard to stretch Deathly Hallows out for four hours. Well, for whatever reason, it worked. The same cannot be said for Breaking Dawn. As I said, I haven’t read the Twilight books, so can’t have an opinion on how best to chop it up and spread it out, but the film I saw was thin and plot-starved. Simply not enough happened to merit its length. Yeah, yeah, I know some of history’s best films and plays delve into the intricacies of one single event (or less) but… Actually, that’s exactly what this film should have done. One thing happens, fine. But instead of details, instead of a raw study in the hopes and fears of each character, instead of a harrowing exploration of the possible outcomes, what fills in the gaps between A and B is more of Edward’s stern-faced platitudes and the surround sound cacophony of a gang of CG wolves arguing in human voices. I don’t know how the story ends, but I’m quite confident that the essential bits of this film could be tacked onto the beginning of the next without remotely extending its length.

Just boring really. The series has lost its life. It deserves 900 words merely to bear witness to its dullness in the hope that it might save someone else 117 minutes.