Beautiful Creatures

We finally see the one film that has crawled out of wasted lottery money and it is, indeed, a disappointment. Perhaps foreign audiences who want to lap up anything British will enjoy this badly told tale more than I did. Two not-too-bright girls both have violent boyfriends, one of whom accidentally gets killed as the girls are thrown together and try to help each other. They make maladroit attempts to cover up the murder, which is where things go even more wrong. Wanting so hard to be a black comedy thriller along the lines of Shallow Grave or Blood Simple, Beautiful Creatures is ultimately little more than worthy of mid-week TV viewing.

I went to see this film at an early sneak preview. Ordinarily I would not have gone to see a film like this as I am not a big fan of British cinema (although I enjoy stuff like Lock Stock & 2SB), but I am very glad I got to see this preview.

The director Bill Eagle was at the preview, and as he mentioned before the film "if you don't think that death, S&M, mutilation of dead bodies, and drugs etc are appropriate for a comedy, then you better leave now". To be honest, I couldn't have put it better myself. The sense of humour in this film is indeed quite gross in places.

The basic plotline is that Petula and Dorothy both have violent boyfriends, and after one of them goes into a blind rage and almost kills Petula, Dorothy accidentally kills him. Both of them try to cover this up, but it isn't going to be easy. While this may sound like a quite depressing drama, it is actually done with a very tongue in cheek humour sometimes and is actually very funny (although this is probably not the sort of thing we should be laughing at!

Overall, if you enjoyed the dark comedy of Lock Stock, like the quirkiness of British movies, and can withstand a barrage of jokes in the worst possible taste (way more dark and gross than a lot of other movies labelled as "gross out comedy" or whatever), I would recommend going to see this film. After the movie ended there was a short question and answer with the director himself, and most of the audience seemed to have enjoyed the movie tremendously... I know I did!

This is a refreshing & darkly humorous, albeit violent, film about women who bond together when things go from bad to worse after they try to help one another. It does have the Thelma & Louise flavor to some extent. None of the men these women in "Beautiful Creatures" are involved are at all redeeming, however. A giddy terror results when they find themselves getting into a deeper and deeper mess. I thought this also had a kind of Scottish feel to it (it's filmed in Glasgow) that reminded me a bit of one of Bill Forsyth's films "That Sinking Feeling." While Forsyth's film was not violent, some people might find "Beautiful Creatures," because of the brutality in it, offensive. Still it's a not often look at the underside of smart women getting involved with some yukky guys and trying hard not to end up destitute & beaten down.

Beautiful Creatures is a British dark comedy about these two women who meet up with each other under undue circumstances and plotted a scheme so that they will come out ahead. It is somewhat funny, with most of the males in the film being their enemy standing in their way. Many of them are portrayed as seedy, opportunist or just plain lowlifes. The women eventually somehow overcomes them all. It is similar to Thelma & Louise, but our heroine are not so innocent themselves, and we have a happy ending.

Dark comedy-like film - nice twists , nice direction style & some really clever jokes, especially if you got a sick sense of humour, hehe. Overall its worth it for its different style. Not for those who're into hollywood crappy comedies or hollywood crap in general