This Beautiful Fantastic
Film poster
Directed bySimon Aboud
Written bySimon Aboud
Produced byAndrea Iervolino
Monika Bacardi
Christine Alderson
Kami Naghdi
Matt Treadwell
Iliane Ogilvie Thompson
Jennifer Levine
Norman Merry
Phil Hunt
Compton Ross
StarringJessica Brown Findlay
Tom Wilkinson
Andrew Scott
Jeremy Irvine
Anna Chancellor
Eileen Davies
CinematographyMike Eley
Edited byDavid Charap
Music byAnne Nikitin
Production
companies
Ipso Facto Productions
Smudge Films
Release date
  • 29 October 2016 (2016-10-29) (New British Film Festival)
Running time
92 minutes[1]
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguagesEnglish
Irish

This Beautiful Fantastic is a 2016 British romantic drama film directed and written by Simon Aboud and starring Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Wilkinson, Andrew Scott, Jeremy Irvine, Anna Chancellor, and Eileen Davies.

Plot

Bella Brown is a young woman with obsessive–compulsive disorder.[2] She works in a public library and is trying to write a children’s book. Bella's fear of plants causes her to neglect the garden of her rented house. Bella meets her next-door-neighbor, a curmudgeonly widower named Alfie Stevenson, and his cook Vernon. After Alfie reports Bella, her landlord gives her one month in which to improve the garden, or face eviction. As Bella works on the garden, she bonds with Alfie, who Vernon has convinced to help. Alfie helps her find an appreciation for nature. She also starts a romance with Billy, an inventor who frequents the library, and who inspires her to begin writing a new story.

A storm destroys most of Bella’s progress on the garden. Billy asks her out on a date, but that day she is fired from her job and then sees Billy with another woman. She falls into a depression. With only a short time left until her landlord's deadline, Alfie and Vernon finish the garden for her. Billy visits and explains that he missed their date because he was in the hospital after an accident, and the person she saw was his triplet brother. Soon after, Alfie passes away. He was actually the owner of Bella's house, and has left it to her, and his own house to Vernon. Bella, now in a relationship with Billy, publishes her picture book, titled This Beautiful Fantastic.

Cast

Production

Principal photography on the film began in London in July 2015.[3][4]

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 61% based on 23 reviews, and an average rating of 6.08/10.[5] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[6]

Middling reviews from critics used the term “twee”[7][8][9] with comparisons to Amélie.[7][8] Negative reviews focused on having too many distracting questions, such as why Bella doesn’t just hire a gardener for a few days[7] and the film’s depiction of troubled mental health as a charming eccentricity.[7][8] Some reviews focused on taste, with Dennis Harvey calling the film a "formulaic crowd-pleaser", that audiences will either find the film sweet or too sweet.[8][9] Sheri Linden calls the film "sweet but not saccharine" and Neil Genzlinger writes "enjoyable performances keep the tale from becoming too heavy-handed".[10][11]

References

  1. ↑ "This Beautiful Fantastic". Samuel Goldwyn Films.
  2. ↑ Miller, Danny (10 March 2017). "Interview: Director Simon Aboud on 'This Beautiful Fantastic' with Jessica Brown Findlay". Cinephiled. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jaafar, Ali (13 July 2015). "Simon Aboud's 'This Beautiful Fantastic' Adds Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Wilkinson & Others". deadline.com. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
  4. ↑ Barraclough, Leo (13 July 2015). "'Downton Abbey's' Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Wilkinson Join 'This Beautiful Fantastic'". variety.com. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
  5. ↑ "This Beautiful Fantastic (2017)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
  6. ↑ "This Beautiful Fantastic Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 7 March 2018.
  7. 1 2 3 4 O'Malley, Sheila (10 March 2017). "This Beautiful Fantastic". RogerEbert.com.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Harvey, Dennis (18 January 2017). "Film Review: 'This Beautiful Fantastic'". Variety.
  9. 1 2 O'Sullivan, Michael (16 March 2017). "'This Beautiful Fantastic': English eccentrics looking for love". Washington Post.
  10. ↑ Linden, Sheri (21 February 2017). "'This Beautiful Fantastic': Film Review Palm Springs 2017". The Hollywood Reporter.
  11. ↑ Genzlinger, Neil (9 March 2017). "Review: In 'This Beautiful Fantastic,' a Gardener Blooms". NY Times.
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