Review Beautiful Disaster – Review on FilmTotaal
Director: Roger Kumble | Script: Roger Kumble | Cast: Virginia Gardner (Abby), Dylan Sprouse (Travis), Brian Austin Green (Mr. Abernathy), Rob Estes (Benny), Libe Barer (America, Austin North (Shepley), ea | Time to play: 95 minutes | Year: 2023
It’s not fair for a critic to give a low rating to a movie that was made for a different audience. A young critic should be able to put himself in perspective if the movie is about older people, while a person over forty should be able to refer to his own teenage experiences when he watches a teen movie. However, the technical aspects are timeless and must also be taken into account. Therefore, the first half of this review is written from the target audience, the second from a more mature perspective.
Abby leaves her father and her gaming life behind to start over at a college in Sacramento, where luckily her best friend is there too. The first day she meets Travis, a muscular tattooed man with a passion for fighting; he’s not Abby’s type at all, but there’s a certain attraction. Travis insists, but Abby doesn’t give up that easily. Unfortunately, neither was her past.
According to IMDb, this is a romantic drama movie, but that’s simply not true (as is the promised one hundred and five minute length): Beautiful disaster it’s an absolute comedy, completely in this era but in that lighthearted style typical of the eighties. It’s far from logical and very superficial, but it’s too entertaining to dwell on.
Abby and Travis have visible chemistry. With her pretty face, young girls will find it easy to laugh at everything she says, and the actress who plays Abby (Virginia Gardner, from Fall in Hallowe’en) looks like Reese Witherspoon; her humor suits him. And the jokes come in abundance, even if they’re as flat as a dime. Travis has a morning boner and it turns out that Abby dreams that she is petting a kitten. So that.
Dick’s humor therefore appears to be to the taste of director Roger Kumble, who has previously made highly entertaining shallow comedies with a dose of romance, such as cruel intentions in The sweetest thing. When Kumble saw the book of the same name, he became convinced that it Beautiful disaster practically made for him.
As soon as Abby’s past comes into play, the story also has an exciting ending. It’s quite a twist given that the plot was already so entrenched in West Coast college life, but it’s fair enough since Travis and Abby’s best friend are also involved. Actually it is not even the United States, because the whole film was shot in Bulgaria, which is seen, among other things, from the street that is not asphalt, but cobblestones.
Beautiful disaster not the most sensible example for young viewers. The movie puts a positive spin on falling in love with someone based on nothing more than physical attraction, getting hit hard is great, a man will get away with it if he insists long enough, a man can get into bed with another man but he’s right to getting upset when a woman receives text messages from another man on her phone, and Abby and Travis also take a quick drink from a bottle of vodka before getting behind the wheel.
The tone of many dialogues does not make sense. The two have just met, but often talk as if they’ve known each other for years. At one point, Abby says “You don’t even know me”, and Travis replies “That’s not true.” Seconds before, he said “Who are you?” to indicate that he cannot gauge his personality. Soon after they destroy the interior of a hotel room, which includes the sound of a cat screeching.
Seen through two different lenses Beautiful disaster just came out for a enough. It’s super shallow and illogical and ill-advised, but fun and hilarious all the same. The title makes sense in other places, but it also applies to the movie itself.