Movie Monday August 8: This Beautiful Fantastic

My pick for this Monday is a movie I’ve wanted to watch for awhile: This Beautiful Fantastic. It’s been a so-so week for me, so I needed a bit of whimsy and this movie delivered.

**Warning, mild spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t watched the movie yet, what are you doing?**

Bella Brown (Jessica Brown Findlay), an aspiring writer with OCD, has what many would call a boring life. She wakes up at the same time, eats the same foods every day, works a quiet job at the local library, and has little aspirations beyond writing children’s books even though she doesn’t have a story yet. Her perfect routine is disrupted when her landlord threatens her with eviction since her back garden is in disarray. She’s given one month to fix it, but her fear of plants and nature in general is a huge obstacle in her way. Further disruption comes in the form of her antagonistic neighbor Alfie Stevenson (Tom Wilkinson) and Vernon (Andrew Scott), Alfie’s cook. Alfie doesn’t like what Bella has done to what was once a beautiful garden and is generally unpleasant to her and to Vernon. When Vernon quits and starts to work for Bella, he’s further enraged. Bella soon has Alfie’s help in restoring the garden, only after Vernon makes a deal with him. She focuses on getting over her fears and learning to be at one with nature as well as opens up to the people in her life, including Billy (Jeremy Irvine), an inventor who frequents the library. The real life she’s found, however, proves to be disappointing. A raging storm destroys her garden, she loses her job, and has her heart broken for the first time. Her month deadline comes to a close just as everything seems to be toppling around her, but in fact it’s just the push she needs to hold onto what she really wants.

This Beautiful Fantastic is a film grounded in realism, but the tone is almost fairytale-like. The story is about the everyday pleasures and how the smallest gesture can be the most meaningful. Bella is similar to the trope of the “manic pixie dream girl”, an eccentric “cool girl” that a male protagonist pines after, but since she is the main character and the story is told from her perspective, we the audience get to see the world from her point of view. The film has a simple story and doesn’t use a lot of fluff or melodrama in order to convey its heart. 

I thought all of the performances were great, but I especially liked Anna Chancellor’s Mrs. Bramble, a librarian that works with Bella. She serves as a pseudo-antagonist for the story, but the ending shows that she’s just a regular person like everyone else. I’m also a huge fan of Andrew Scott in general, but I found that he stole the show in every scene he was in. He added just the right amount of emotion or comedy when needed and was probably my favorite character out of the bunch.

The only gripe I have with This Beautiful Fantastic is the portrayal of obsessive compulsive disorder. It wasn’t that it was offensive, but OCD is treated like just another eccentricity for Bella. It seemed like this was just a convenient plot point to add to her backstory and to show visibly how she was changing and opening up, but it was under utilized. I would’ve liked to see more of how OCD affected her everyday life, especially towards the end of the film after she gets her heart broken. With only a 92 minute runtime it was hard to accomplish more, but with a few extra scenes wouldn’t have made it too much longer.

I thought This Beautiful Fantastic was a fun and light movie that had great heart. It showed real emotions without being melodramatic and had sweet moments without being saccharine. It’s reminiscent of Amélie, but is definitely its own story.

One moment that made me laugh: Any time Vernon delivered food to Alfie through the shed wall. Those short scenes added some comedy to what would’ve otherwise been a montage of the garden’s progress and Bella’s growing relationship with Billy. Andrew Scott and Tom Wilkinson also play so well off of one another throughout the entire film.

One moment that made me jealous: When Bella and Alfie visit his exotic plant room. I wish I had a house like Alfie’s or even his gift with plants. I’m currently struggling to keep a very beautiful orchid and a hanging vine plant alive. I’ve alway seen myself surrounded by greenery, but unless I get better at caring for plants, I’ll have to save up for a gardener.

Overall, I’d give This Beautiful Fantastic 7 out of ten wild strawberries