I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the story of Beauty and the Beast. I’ve seen the Disney movie a zillion times, I saw the Broadway show a zillion and a half times, and I even have a tattoo of the cartoon rose with the petal falling off (the Broadway production logo). So naturally, when I heard they were making a film adaptation of the YA novel Beastly by Alex Flinn, which is a modern-day retelling of the story, I couldn’t wait to see it.
Here’s the honest truth: If you’re looking to experience thought-provoking, artistically-riveting, high-caliber filmmaking, go see The King’s Speech. But if you’re looking for a 1 hour 35 minute cheesy, silly, melodramatic escape from reality, Beastly has got your name written all over it. My motto is: whoever said a movie has to be top quality to be enjoyable?
Sure, the dialogue is awful, the fake New York City set laughable (it was filmed in Montreal, Canada), and the characters not-quite-believable. But Beastly does have some things going for it. For one, its cast. Though Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four) struggles with his American accent throughout the entire film, his body language and non-verbal expressions had me totally buying his character’s pain. Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) isn’t exactly Meryl Streep, but she’s pretty (holding up the “beauty” end of the deal) and believably kind-hearted and vulnerable. Mary-Kate Olsen is passable as Kendra the witch, and Neil Patrick Harris steals the show as blind tutor Will. But we all know that NPH can do no wrong.
The plot remains surprisingly faithful to the traditional story of Beauty and the Beast, right down to the roses, the household staff sidekicks, the Beauty’s troubled father, and the Beast’s awkward-yet-endearing attempts at winning the Beauty’s heart. Rather than Belle (French for “beautiful”), the girl here is called Lindy, a play off the Spanish word “linda,” which means “pretty.” I would have liked for the film to have included the magic mirror and a bit more mob-out-to-destroy-the-Beast action, but the story here still does manage to flow without those plot points.
My main qualm with the film is that the Beast isn’t actually a beast! Beast Kyle is just a tattooed, scarred, still-human version of the Kyle we meet in the beginning of the film. In every previous version of Beauty and the Beast that I’ve heard of, including the novel from which this film has been adapted, the boy is transformed into an actual fur-covered, clawed, hideous beast. Tattooed Kyle isn’t all that scary. He’s actually kind of hot, in an East Village sort of way. And because tattoos are something one acquires voluntarily, I don’t exactly get why Lindy feels sorry for Kyle. Wouldn’t she just naturally assume that he looks that way because he chose to? That issue is never addressed in the film, but I guess it doesn’t have to be. Like I said, the Beastly audience is fully aware of what they’re getting into before buying their movie tickets: an hour and a half of fun, if not exactly logical, suspension of disbelief.
Movie poster courtesy of CBS Films.
Book cover image courtesy of Harper Teen.
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