It’s incredibly difficult to write about a film of this caliber. I must admit, I even thought about scrapping this review. Yet, here we continue on, like an army headed into a battle against odds they know they cannot overcome. I may have known, deep down, that this wasn’t a film worthy of my time. Yet here we are. Beautiful Disaster, at the least, gets half of its name correct. The film is in fact a disaster, yet what is put out for the masses to see is anything but beautiful.
Beautiful Disaster follows Abby (Virginia Gardner) a new college student who is attempting to escape her life at home with her deadbeat father with a gambling addiction. At college, she meets Travis (Dylan Sprouse), a fellow student and prolific underground boxer who, in Abby’s own words, is a total frat bro type dude, who only gets with women for their bodies. Weirdly, Abby finds herself attracted to him, and what follows is a weird mix of montages and scenes that attempt to put together a coherent story.
Imagine you were trying to make dinner for you and your family. You look in the fridge, pull out a bunch of ingredients that you’re not even sure go together, and start cooking. You’re throwing in steak into pasta, mixing it with lettuce, and topping it off with ketchup and an egg. You have no idea what you made, but you know it’s bad. So right before you’re about to serve it, you decide “Hey, Pizza sounds better than whatever this is”, and so you order a pizza and throw the rest of your dish in the trash. That’s basically how this movie feels when you watch it.
Now, I understand that this is supposed to be an adaptation of a largely popular novel series by Jamie McGuire. I know that many people love this series. I am sure that the novel is better than the film. I am just disappointed at how jumbled the film actually is from start to finish.
What really hurts the film the most is just how little chemistry Abby and Travis have. The pair go from hating each other, to being in love, to hooking up, to hating again all in consecutive scenes. It’s just so hard to get invested with the literal tennis match of emotions going on here.
I was also extremely disappointed in how little we got to see in their actual relationship development. It felt like they had wrapped up their story a mere hour into the film, and yet at the same time, I feel like I saw nothing happen. Then, the film pivots to a completely different genre for the final half hour before the film wraps. It is the wildest 180 heel turn I have seen in a film, and it left wondering why they even made the first two thirds to begin with. It just seemed like the filmmakers put together a mishmash of storylines that end up going nowhere and seem to be introduced only in an effort to make a 20-minute story a full feature length.
With all the bad, however, I do have to acknowledge that the fight scenes actually looked good. It felt like they really cared about those sections of Beautiful Disaster more than any other and it came out on screen. Plus, I enjoyed Dylan Sprouse kicking ass, it seemed to fit. Also, be aware that the most unhinged, awkward, and buck wild sex scene I have ever seen features in the later moments of the film, which at the very least kept me entertained.
Final Thoughts
Beautiful Disaster starts on a whirlwind montage showing the prelude to what the film’s main plot is about. A story about a young girl raised by a father with a gambling addiction to become a child prodigy in the underground poker scene is a fascinating concept. I found myself wondering why that movie wasn’t made and this one was. I honestly would’ve rather have seen that film, as the 45 second premise we got was more interesting than the 90-minute end product soiling our screens.
