Les Belles Créatures

Beautiful Beings is a masterfully told story of the struggles of being a teen in an imperfect world full of imperfect families and imperfect situations. It is a raw and yet at times heart warming look in to the lives of four teen boys navigating a train wreck of circumstances. Its dark plot is skillfully developed with subtle misdirection and haunting foreshadowing. The clever pacing captures the intensity and destructiveness of these damaged lives all while offering reprieves of humor and cathartic tenderness.

At the root of it the story has been told countless times. An outsider is brought into a circle of friends, harsh teen cruelties and outright disdain slowly melt into new dynamics and personal growth. It is The Breakfast Club but with a much more unpretentious group of troubled youth. A sort of Stranger Things but with very non-paranormal dangers. And with the highest praise one could say it is retelling this narrative with the honesty and insight of films like The Perks of Being a Wallflower or the original Let the Right Ones In. This film triumphs in is brutal honesty and is mesmerizing in its depiction of life in a weathered blue-collar Reykjavík suburb. Its characters and dialogue hit masterfully again and again with very uniquely Icelandic circumstances and yet it remains universal in its observation of struggling families.

Part of what I love most about what writer-Director Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson has done so well with this film is its wonderful casting. The characters are so awkwardly enjoyable to discover. And very careful consideration to the physical size of the characters helps build the narrative. The smallest are the most vulnerable the largest the most menacing. And the performances he has inspired from everyone, in particularly the young leads, is truly award worthy. These actors deliver strong consistently motivated characters who you quickly fell you have known for a lifetime. Each actor clearly understood the purpose of their character and delivers the needed dynamics with a clarity one would expect from a fly on the wall documentary.

There is one one particularly refreshing aspect of the modern teen depicted in this film that I don't think I have seen done so well before. These teens, with all their troubles (and boy do they have troubles) have grown up in a world that is starting to address toxic masculinity. They really struggle with catching themselves being outright jerks. Being teens that make impulsive choices with little thought of how profoundly their actions could impact those around them or being drawn to responding to insult with escalations of violence. All this is happening while they also trying to influence better of themselves and their piers. And by shining a light on their own actions, by coming to the defense of those who are being shamed for exposing personal vulnerabilities or with unexpected selfless actions they enable changes. Now to be clear these teens are still brutally crude, and groose, quick to anger and cruel but they've grown up at least in a system that has taught them to question this. It's characters in this kind of shifting world that I haven't seen depicted before so thoughtfully.

Beautiful Beings continues the growing trend of more honest and therefore often darker looks into the coming of age narrative. It needs to be said this film depicts and addresses social poverty, teen cruelty, violence, self harm, teen sexuality, mental illness, drug use and even rape with brutal honesty. And it is a more perfect movie having depicted these realities honestly. It is a wonderfully crafted, hauntingly acted modern look at teens struggling in a brutally imperfect world to discover for the first time or retain what makes them Beautiful Beings.

A heartwarming story of teenage self-destruction and graphic violence. No, really.

I can't stop thinking about this film. On the face of it, it's about four teenage boys from variously broken homes who smoke, fight and swagger around 1990s Reykjavik causing trouble and doing fairly horrendous things.

But they are friends, and that's what this really is. It's a film about friendship, enduring friendship through the extremes. Sticking up for your mates (even when you should know better). Having your mates stick up for you.

These boys only have each other. Balli has no one to start with - bullied at school, ignored at home, he lives a filthy, pathetic life until Addi takes him into the gang (with the animalistic Konni and weirdo Siggi) after taking pity on him.

We follow the boys on a series of misadventures of teenage impetuousness which build - or sink - in horrifying ways towards the film's conclusion. Konni fights. Addi grows. Balli lives. Siggi pulls bogies out of his nose and chases people with them, but that's not the point.

There's a mildly supernatural aspect to it all as Addi experiences premonitions about what may unfold - they may be real but equally may just be him maturing and seeing the consequences (while doing too many mushrooms).

It's rare to see such fully formed, three-dimensional characters, but by the end of the film you know these kids, you're rooting for them (in spite of yourself). You're one of the gang.

Sturla Brandth Grøvlen's camerawork is divine, director Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson's story is moving and believable, the performances are perfect (especially Birgir Dagur Bjarkason, Áskell Einar Pálmason, Viktor Benóný Benediktsson and Snorri Rafn Frímannsson as the kids), the soundtrack is addictive. It's the whole package.

(In Game of Thrones, they spent a fortune working on making the dragon fire realistic, on the basis that if you believe the fire, you'll believe the dragon. Fake VFX would have ruined it. Here, it's the fight scenes. Believe the violence and you'll believe the teenagers, and I don't know if there's an Oscar for best fight choreography but Jón Viðar Arnþórsson and Imma Helga Arnþórsdóttir who did these scenes should win it. As the last reviewer said, this really does look like kids beating each other up - and RIP the extra who gets a door smashed full in her face, I assume she just died in real life.)

I can't stop thinking about this film. And I can't recommend it highly enough.

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Rewatch: Such fantastic details that are too easily missed... The boy Konni trips up in the playground at the start is the same boy who hits Balli in the tunnel. It's just cyclic violence passed on and Konni/Addi are never aware they triggered it all. Such attention to detail, it's magnificent, there's not a wasted second in the film.

What a hidden gem. Such an amazing film. I really enjoyed it . Very nice story , script , acting , directing , the whole 9 yards, the whole shabang . Whatever you are looking for in a film , this film has it. The characters are hundred percent mesmerizing. They are so successful . Looks like the weather sucks in iceland but thats what you get if you live that further up north. One party scene looked like daytime but in fact it was night time party. I am so glad i found this movie on KANOPY , a library streaming service . I read the reviews and decided to give it a shot. Definitely , did not disappoint . If you dont mind the subtitles , you will love this film... enjoy...

It's been a while ago since I've seen this one, but I still remember how well I liked it. It's hard to find movies like this, ones which don't feel like movies, where a bunch of life stuff happens which feels believable, and you're just along for the ride.

The directing was really good. The scenery was immersive. The acting from what I could tell (not my native language) seemed pretty great. All of the people felt like they fit their role. In other words, the one who was supposed to be the tough one looked the part. The one who played the wimp, looked like the biggest dork. The father, especially. The mother, and even the sister. Even the boys they fought felt like they genuinely fit the part. The fight scenes felt like real stuff that could happen. I didn't feel myself thinking, "yeah right". Pretty much everything felt believable, and like I was watching more of a documentary than a movie.

Now, this is my kind of movie. I like movies which don't feel like a movie. I like that "being there" vibe. I want to feel like a fly on the wall. This film delivers that, and I don't think there was one scene I didn't feel that way in. It doesn't try to hype up a bunch of fluff, or influence you to feel a certain way about it. It just presents some scenes where the sequence of events tell the story. Even when some extreme events occur, it fits the context, and feels believable.

It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. So, if you're looking for larger than life caricatures, epic worlds, elaborate costumes, distorted reality, exciting stunts or scary monsters, then you'll likely miss the whole point.

Some other things I remember being interesting:

I found myself wondering what happened to that boy's face, and they didn't tell us straight away. The way it was finally revealed was woven into the narrative in a way which felt natural. It didn't feel like they were showing you this so you would know. It felt like I was one of the boys in the scene, and just as curious as they were. When they reacted to the story, it mirrored how I felt inside.

I also like the way the drug scenes felt. The actors didn't act like they were trying to act high. It just felt like they were high, and behaving the way that high people act.

There was a tragic scene at the end where something was done to one of the boys, and it actually felt believable. The way that the boy was shaken by it felt genuine.

The weakest part of the film was the revenge scene with the father. Although, it wasn't bad at all. It made sense in context, and didn't feel too predictable. I managed to feel a bit surprised by it, and not in a way where it just felt like that because it didn't fit. The fallout afterwards made me feel upset.

The ending wasn't what I'd hoped, and felt a little short, but it didn't disappoint. The circumstances which led to it were, but not the acting or storyline. It worked, and was a nice way to finish the sequence of events.

On a more personal note, I like that it had some really attractive actors in it. Somehow, that always makes the characters feel more believable. I feel more engaged in the sequence of events, as well as immersed in that world. Probably, because I actually want to be there, and with them. It helps me to connect. Plus, I really don't care to stare at ugly boys acting stupid. Having attractive actors makes even the dumbest stuff they do seem more interesting. I mean, even the wimpy boy is sorta cute, in an awkward way. It helps me feel sorry for him, and want things to turn out OK. However, it's also fun to watch him suffer. There's nothing fun about watching an ugly freak suffer. It's almost too much.

There don't seem to be enough movies like this. That's tragic, because I could get lost in stories like this all day long. Afterwards, I feel like I lived that experience, and those are my memories. It's the sort of memories I've experienced in my own real life. It makes my life feel like it's been even more interesting and memorable. It deepens my experience of being human, and a guy. It makes me miss the good ole days, when I was wild like that. It makes me want to go and do some more guy things, and get into even more hijinks.

I hope they make more good movies which feel like memories and not movies.

By watching this film, you are transported into the lives of these four boys. I mean, the movie is so involving that you feel like you are part of the gang. The actors, especially Áskell Einar Pálmason, Birgir Dagur Bjarkason and Viktor Benóný Benediktsson are exceptional.

The characters aren't one dimensional simpletons. There's a lot of contradictions, transformation and growth throughout the movie and the express everything to perfection. They let you know what the characters are feeling and thinking even when they don't say anything. Áskell Einar Pálmason probably got the hardest role to play, as Balli, the bullied boy who'd never had a friend before. At the end of the movie, Balli looks like a completely different person. He is transformed by the friendship from the other boys.

Probably different people watching this movie will take away different things. The story approaches multiple themes. For me, the biggest and most moving one is "friendship". The way Addi offers his friendship to Balli and how far the four boys are willing to go to stand up for their friends is really moving. I think I will remember this movie for the rest of my life.

I'm giving 9 stars because of the mystical theme, which I was hoping to understand by the end of the movie, but I couldn't. I will probably watch this movie again. Maybe I'll get it the next time around.