Beastly Review: Not So Charmed

I went into a promotional screening of Beastly this week hoping against odds for something a little more Enchanted than A Cinderella Story. What I got was somewhere in the middle, and I’m not quite sure where that leaves me. Whereas the Young Adult novel the film is based on is a straightforward modernization of the classic fairy tale Beauty & the Beast, the film carries more subtle influences of stories like The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. The story follows a vain, prep school pretty boy named Kyle (Alex Pettyfer), who makes the mistake of crossing the wrong goth girl at his school, Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen). Turns out this goth girl is actually a witch and can distill quite the hex; Kendra curses Kyle to be “as aggressively ugly outside” as he is on the inside.

A now disfigured Kyle has one year to find someone to love who loves him in return, or the transformation becomes permanent. Kyle’s shunned by his news anchor father (Peter Krause) and sent to live in a townhouse outside Manhattan with his maid (Lisa Gay Hamilton), eventually joined by a blind tutor (Neil Patrick Harris). Kyle soon extorts a tragic situation to spend time with a girl (Vanessa Hudgens), who just might be the key to breaking the witch’s spell. What follows is a familiar story with not enough twists. Bear with me as I work through it.

Let’s start with the performances. Mary-Kate Olsen proves adequate in her role. Every time she’s on screen, I can’t help but wonder if the new generation of teen audience members know who she is. Hudgen’s character would’ve been more likable with a little more characterization, but I won’t hold that against the actress right now. Peter Krause and Lisa Gay Hamilton are pretty much lost in the shuffle as the story unfolds. Neil Patrick Harris, whose name seems almost out of place in the credits on this project, delivered the bulk of the humor and the audience laughed every time.

New teen heart-throb Alex Pettyfer will probably have a long and healthy career regardless of the success or failure of this movie, but for my money I Am Number Four is the superior film he’s got in theatres right now. He works hard to manage a balance between his character’s comedy and intensity, but ultimately falls short thanks to some script issues. Still, he comes off as a capable actor with an old Hollywood charm who, if rumors of his off-camera antics prove false, could lead to many notable performances down the road. Even though I hate to do the comparison, I mean the career Robert Pattinson might enjoy if he manages to break out of the ever-present Twilight shadow, though Pettyfer’s current philosophy seems to be “if you’ve got a Young Adult adaptation, I’m available” (he recently confirmed he’s in talks for both The Hunger Games and The Mortal Instruments).

Alex Flinn’s original novel is not without its problems. Honestly, Kyle basically abducts the character of Lindy and holds her hostage in an age of cell phones, instant messaging and…the ability to walk out the front door at anytime? At first, I was kind of thankful to see writer/director Daniel Barnz had excised and revised some of those issues. Fans of the book should note there are no fairytale character chat rooms in this adaptation, meaning Kyle will not be engaged in late night messaging with a certain mermaid at any point. Though I actually quite missed the importance roses held, the tattoos and even the beastly makeup were kind of a fun improvement. But thankfulness wears off quickly as the remaining story proves very thin, populated with a lot of chance encounters and brooding looks. Harris’ tutor character is vastly underutilized and the romance between Kyle and Lindy doesn’t really even start until about halfway through, leaving little time to build any emotional climax. Gone are some of the slightly deeper motivations for the curse, oversimplifying an already shallow situation. There are a few tender glimpses of original moments in Barnz’ screenplay—the zoo, the lake house—and even some comical ones—the gift of JuJu Bees, almost every scene with Neil Patrick Harris—but there are more problems than not. The dialogue moves too fast at times. The moral, true but still trite, is aggressively beaten into the audience at every opportune moment. The set up of douche-y, self-absorbed Kyle at the beginning is rushed and ultimately ineffective. The new ending, hinging almost entirely on a class trip after what should be several gravely more important happenings, is rushed and abrupt with its not impossible happily ever after.

Beastly reminds of the old Fox Family and ABC Family movies starring then WB TV stars that used to be kind of fun to stay in and watch on Sunday nights, before everything on the channel was a direct to video sequel or holiday event film.

I think a little more time and attention to story elements and characterization could’ve made for a much better overall product. It isn’t an exhaustively terrible film, it’s just not a particularly great one. If you’re working on a when to catch it scale, this is something that for most can definitely wait for an afternoon watching on HBO. While it will probably fail to live up to the expectations of most adults, the younger tween audience should be sufficiently entertained.

Images courtesy of Takashi Seida and CBS Films.