Calling Beautiful Creatures a Southern-fried Twilight wouldn’t be an unfair claim, at least based on its marketing campaign — which highlights that, yes, this movie centers on a teen romance between a couple of star-crossed kids, one of whom, yes, is all kinds of supernatural. And, yes, their love puts the fate of the world in danger, because, well, why not?
Based on a series of young-adult novels by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, Creatures is a flawed, tonally mercurial movie that struggles to translate its source material into a cohesive film. But without scenes consisting only of characters staring into each other’s eyes, it immediately has more depth to offer than its pop-culture cousin.
What its trailer doesn’t begin to capture is that this surprisingly beguiling attempt to blend fantasy, coming-of-age drama, melodrama, camp and social critique isn’t always successful — but it’s nearly always entertaining.
Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) is a bright, charismatic, high school junior quickly growing tired of his small Bible Belt town, the fictional Gatlin, S.C. While dreaming daily of going to college far away (and nightly of a mysterious raven-haired girl), he tears into Naked Lunch, The Catcher in the Rye and every other banned book he can get his hands on. He finds delight in his disdain for his classmates, who seem to be content to live and die in stifling Gatlin, a fate that recently befell Ethan’s mother.
Enter Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert), an abrasive outsider a far cry from the chatty Southern belles in Ethan’s classroom; when those gossip girls say that Lena is a Ravenwood — a member of the wealthy, reclusive clan that founded the town — Ethan’s interest is piqued. And before you can say “meet cute,” Ethan is following her around, earnestly trying to befriend her. He’s like a puppy trying to melt the heart of a cactus.