’This Beautiful Fantastic’, with its whimsical and fantastical world, would be perfect for those who just want to indulge in a 90-minute escape from reality and are willing to forego the need for a logical plot.
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‘This Beautiful Fantastic’ is a whimsical modern-day fairy tale that tells the story about an unlikely friendship between a young aspired children’s book author, Bella Brown (Jessica Brown Findlay), and her cantankerous neighbour Alfie (Tom Wilkinson). Bella is an orphan who has grown up into “the oddest of oddballs”. A neat freak about everything in her house, from her rotation of seven toothbrushes for every day of the week, to the immaculately arranged rows of canned food in her cupboard, Bella neglects her garden due to her childhood-induced phobia of plants, letting it grow into what Alfie calls an “unmitigated eco-apocalypse”. Bella’s simple, routined life is disrupted when her landlord threatens to evict her if she doesn’t manage to clean up the garden within one month.
The main story of ‘The Beautiful Fantastic’ - two opposite individuals overcoming their differences as they work together on a task - isn’t something we have never seen before. The metaphor of gardening isn’t exactly groundbreaking, either. However, the film still works largely thanks to the heartwarming interactions among the characters, between Bella and the nagging, irritable but also endlessly wise and surprisingly caring Alfie, the supportive Gaelic-speaking cook Vernon (Andrew Scott), and the nerdy, awkward and charming Billy (Jeremy Irvine). Admittedly, these characters at times feel thin and two-dimensional when the story focuses a bit too much on Bella. Considering, however, it is a 90-minute film whose self-contained world revolves around Bella, the thin side characters are forgivable.
What is much less forgivable, on the other hand, is the characterisation of Bella. Bella is your typical “quirky”, awkward female character whose quirks are meant to make her relatable but really just make her personality flat and contrived. Her borderline “OCD” tendencies are just enough to make her an “oddball” but never too much that it interferes with her life. Her fear of plants is supposedly so severe that she doesn’t dare to step into the garden for years but it is cured just by reading Alfie’s book. She also calls herself a writer but admits that the book she dreams of writing doesn't have a story yet. Bella gets everything she wants in the end, not because she is driven to achieve her goal, but because the people around her for some reason go out of their way to give it to her.
However, what undermines ‘The Beautiful Fantastic’ the most is its weak story with low to zero stakes. Bella has thirty days to tidy up her overgrown garden in order to avoid being evicted - not exactly an insurmountable mountain that we would be thrilled to see our protagonist overcome. And the supposedly lowest point of the story, where it seems that Bella will not finish her task in time, is also resolved in the most convenient and unconvincing way that makes Bella’s journey over the course of the film almost pointless.
Overall, ’This Beautiful Fantastic’, with its whimsical and fantastical world, would be perfect for those who just want to indulge in a 90-minute escape from reality and are willing to forego the need for a logical plot.
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