Overview
Discovery
It flitted across my Amazon Prime watchlist months ago while frustrated at trying to get my Hallmark Movies app to work, and I added it to my watchlist and promptly forgot about it. Its cover didn’t quite look like a standard hallmark, though. Fast forward yesterday when we wanted something light but perhaps less cliché, and the bemused introspection of that cover-picture was a whispered invitation. When I saw that this show held a solid PG rating without being blatantly for-children, I was sold and we began watching. What proceeded was just 92 minutes of every shade of light – refracted, reflected, rainbow, misty, dewy, flickering, shadowed, and altogether luminous. Every frame of this hour-and-half is carefully crafted, framed, colored, and timed.
Sublime Storytelling
Understated yet fantastic
The film’s storytelling achieves an almost alchemical balance of quiet understatement yet magical fantasy, with the occasional flight of a bird from a page or outline of a halo that keeps the viewer unsure of the genre, or how much magic to expect – and yet at every possible Hollywood-trigger the film takes the quiet path.
In one scene – the first of two in which Bella’s hopeless frustration becomes a scream – Alfie enters through the garden door. She issues a stream of accusations and verbal abuse at him, flinging in conclusion, “why don’t you help me instead of gloating?” His answer is as quietly counter-trend as is the whole story: “Okay. I will.” And he does.
It ignores the opportunity for romantic tensions, defuses betrayal and vindictiveness, and never loses grasp on its message: that this film is about Bella wih others only as they are reflected in her life that grows from false funeral-shades to something more.
The Theme of Light
The themes of light and color fill the film, from Bella’s funeral shades of black that mark the beginning to the sunlight in the foliage, to the small triangle of glass visible through Bella’s front door. Color or its absence characterizes every scene of the film, to a degree lightly reminiscent of Zhang Yimou trademark in films such as Raise the Red Lantern, and Hero.
As Bella says when entering Alfie’s garden room study (all yellows and greens), “It’s beautiful, fantastic!”
Humor Throughout
A crucial part of this alchemy is the way in which the richness of the film – potentially as artery-clogging as Vernon’s black pudding breakfasts – is the way in which every rich or heavy scene is counter-balanced by well-timed humor or curiosity: Miss Bramble’s ominous board message is marred by a hilarious mis-spelling; a penetratingly unexpected moment of sincerity between Vernon and Alfie ends with “But gently, yeah?” “Of course.” Cut to the hallway, pounding “Bella, open the bloody door!” And so the tempo of this short film keeps a springing step through its rich gardens.
Dramatis Personae
The acting is irreproachable, with a small dramatis personae who occupy this self-proclaimed fairytale to poignant effect. Take note of the names, which should be remembered as well as the faces that go with them: Bella Brown, the main character (or is she?) played in all her ugly-duckling awkwardness and inner-beauty by Jessica Brown Findlay, Anna Chancellor (from several favorite Jane Austen films) as Ms. Bramble the continuously self-contradicting head librarian, Jeremy Irvine as delighted and delightful Billy Tranter who seems opposite Bella’s persona in every way, Eileen Davies as Milly Wilton, the long-suffering and devoted doctor who subtly appears on the sides of two very important scenes in the story, an excellent Tom Wilkinson as narrator and other-side-of-the-garden curmudgeon Alfie Stephenson (who I almost consider the main character beside Bella).
Last but not least comes Andrew Scott, whose appearance one reviewer noted as the moment they knew this film to be something excellent. Happy to engage Bella in her casette-learned Gaelic as he sweeps the dirt from the floor, single father Vernon Kelly has it in his power – but not his disposition – to steal the spotlight, and repeatedly saves Bella from otherwise certain distress, nonetheless receding at each moment he could have vied for attention.
Written & Directed
Simon Aboud has here directed and written a magnificent “fairytale”, inspiring total trust in every scene, name, and layer of symbolism. It has the rich symbolism of my favorite “fairytale” films (but, unlike Pan’s Labyrinth, chooses as its pallet humor and light). And, with its unassuming PG rating, I can and will recommend This Beautiful Fantastic without reservation.