Movies are about fantasy and high expectations. Even when a movie is trying to tell a story about normal, everyday people, those characters are played by actors and actresses who stand-out (be it for their physical appearance, charisma, etc) amongst their peers and definitely amongst non-actors. They are selling an image and underneath even the most unattractive mask lies a person who often far exceeds societies expectations of pretty.
The “Beauty and the Beast” fairytale has always attempted to turn our impressions of ugly into beautiful. A troubled father offers his young daughter as collateral for his high debt to a mysterious cloaked man, who holds her hostage in his house. The man, it is revealed, has been cursed by a witch for valuing his looks more than others. The only way to break the curse is for him to meet a person who can love his hideous face. He is as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside.
The newest, and possibly most stalkerish, version of “Beauty and the Beast” is for the kids. Alex Flinn’s best-selling young adult novel “Beastly” has been adapted into a movie by the same name by writer-director Daniel Barnz. This time around our beast is image-obsessed high school senior Kyle (Alex Pettyfer) and his beauty is Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens). Kyle runs and easily wins senior class president, thanks heavily to his bullying campaign against all the uglies at school. He is absolutely gorgeous and firmly believes anyone who isn’t at the same level as him does not deserve kindness. His outright cruelty aimed at many of his less fortunate classmates rivals some of the more vile teen bullies in the non-movie world.
Enraged by Kyle’s nastiness and body-shaming, Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen) the school witch (does every school have one?) curses Kyle for one year with hideous tree tattoos that change with the season, open wounds on his face, and gasp, baldness, unless he can find someone who can love him for his new features. His father, played with such dedication to meanness by Peter Krause, casts him to the bowels of Brooklyn, away from any prying eyes, once they discover no amount of surgery can fix Alex’s body. Thankfully for all the teen girls (and dirty older ladies like me) he spends a majority of the movie in brooding shirtless, proving that even a couple of ugly tattoos and open wounds really aren’t that bad.
As the plot thickens Kyle begins to target, nay stalk, his former classmate Lindy after they meet again at a Halloween party. She doesn’t run from him, rather she speaks politely and shortly to him before running off into the wild. He follows her back to her home night after night until he rescues he rescues her father from a drug deal gone wrong. In exchange for keeping the cops at bay, Kyle asks for Lindy to come live with him so he can protect her. The moments of levity from the dark, angsty, and “Twilight” friendly plot come in the form of scene stealing Neil Patrick Harris as Kyle’s blind tutor. He can see beauty, even without his sight, and without him the movie would crumble even more into forgetableness.
While BEASTLY‘s actors, sets, and cinematography are incredibly, and often distractingly, stunning, the story lacks any beauty at all. Kyle’s dedication to ridding the curse outweighs the believability that he actually feels anything other than hatred of himself. The character isn’t likeable, and when he is freed from the curse he doesn’t seem to have learned anything from his year-long experience. Looks are still more important to him, even if now he knows some can love him despite them.
