BEAUTIFUL CREATURES (M) casts a spell over much of its running time, broken only when Hollywood hackney ramps up the horrors and the horology clocks up to an unsustainable length that depletes what could have been a far greater pleasure.

Apart from Richard LaGravenese’s screenplay adaptation of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s novel, the success of this film about casters is the casting.

Alden Ehrenreich is suitably shloopy as the literate dreamer yearning to get the hell out Gatlin, South Carolina. That is until the gorgeous Lena comes to town. She is played by Alice Englert. It plagued me where I had seen her before. I’m sure that I had. Turns out that she is Jane Campion’s daughter and the resemblance is remarkable.

The venerable Viola Davis appears as the human conduit between mortals and casters, a librarian of haunting history and lore literature.

And then there is the scene chewing Emma Thompson who plays the personification of evil and Jeremy Irons as an old warlock. These thesps appear to be having a thrilling time playing aristocratic supernaturals and it’s their gleeful gravitas, under the direction of LaGravenese, that gives the picture gloss and glamour.

Part ADDAMS FAMILY part DARK SHADOWS part BEWITCHED, when it doesn’t go into CGI overstatement, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES is actually quite a well played story, that should have greater crossover appeal than the overripe tripe and trite tweenie TWILIGHT trilogy.

© Richard Cotter

1st March, 2013

Tags: Sydney Movie Reviews- BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, Richard LaGravenese, Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl, Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Viola Davis, Emma Thomson, Jeremy Irons, Sydney Arts Guide, Richard Cotter