Directed By Roger Kumble

Starring – Dylan Sprouse, Virginia Gardner, Libe Barer

The Plot – Bad-boy Travis Maddox (Sprouse) is exactly what college freshman Abby Abernathy (Gardner) needs and wants to avoid. He spends his nights fighting in underground boxing matches, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. But Abby wants nothing to do with Travis. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis offers her a simple bet: if he loses his next fight, he must remain sex-free for a month. If he wins, Abby must live in his apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that Abby’s dark past is about to emerge, and he may have finally met his match.

Rated R for sexual content, adult language, some violence and teen drinking

Beautiful Disaster | Official Trailer | Voltage Pictures – YouTube

POSITIVES

For better or worse, “Beautiful Disaster” wholeheartedly embraces the silliness and humility within its young adult confines, fleshing out a consistently awkward engagement that brings with it a few endearing laughs, intentional or not, that elevated it beyond some of the worst of the subgenre that I’ve experienced over the last decade. What’s most surprising here is that Kumble feels right at home in exploiting the lunacy of his romantic dynamic at the forefront of the narrative, often putting them through gross-out gags, clumsy misunderstandings and blossoming vulnerabilities that at the very least kept me invested to the ever-changing dynamic of the narrative, instead of one that overtly took itself too seriously for the detriment of the likeability of the characters. That isn’t so much a problem here, especially in Sprouse’s Travis, who on the surface level begins a bit creepy with a ploy to force Abby to stay in his apartment and sleep in his bed for 30 days, but eventually sheds those douche crumbs for an undeterred charisma and captivating on-screen presence that easily makes him standout among his co-stars. Considering Dylan is given the weakest and most obvious kind of material to work with, he pulls it off remarkably more times than not, harvesting with it the charms and believability of a leading lad in the eyes of female audience members, but also a commitment to physicality inside of the mixed martial arts ring that affords him quite the transformation from his days as the little boy in the Adam Sandler romper “Big Daddy”. Finally, the film isn’t subdued by the limitations of its rumored 25 million dollar budget, harnesting luminating style and intoxicating scenery in establishing sequences and backdrops that channeled some of the big screen vibrancy that many young adult properties aren’t blessed by. In particular, the lighting, if even obviously, plays to the versatility of the film and the couple’s ever-changing emotional dexterity, inscribing a surprising element of artistic integrity to the movie’s cinematography pallet that I truly wasn’t expecting in a one night Fathom events engagement.

NEGATIVES

At least this is a film that lives up to its title in more ways than one. “Beautiful Disaster” is putting it lightly, at times this film is an ugly calamity in more ways than one, which not only made for one of the strangest in-theater experiences that I have had this year, but also one that silenced the sounds of its hardcore novel enthusiasts that surrounded me in the theater, making for an adaptation that I truly believe neither them nor myself expected with so much cringing emphasis throughout. For starters, the dialogue and script are purely garbage, with one-dimensional interactions practically spelling out for the audience what they easily already know in the structure of its plot, but also a disjointed direction from Kumble that often feels like as many as three films at once fighting for attention and focus inside of this 90 minute film. For one part, it’s a romantic comedy, with all of the familiarity and tropes of movies like “Fifty Shades of Grey” or “After”, in everything from romantic triangles, bad boy from the other side of the tracks, sweet girl exploiting her rebellious nature, and of course these awfullly manufactured sex sequences, which emit awkward emphasis in everything from the hilariously bad music selections, to the unnatural arrival of their inclusion feeling like spontaneous spurts of titilation to satisfy a completely unnecessary R-rating. The second side is a slapstick comedy, with some of the most jarringly compromising gags and deliveries that not only stunt the growth of the romance that the entire film is based around, and the third and final half hour of the movie deconstructs everything you previously knew about it, to conjure a Vegas heist and occasionally femme fatale mob story that quite literally comes out of nowhere once the romantic plot has been resolved at around the one hour mark of the movie. To say that these shifts are abruptly spontaneous is putting it lightly. For my money, I often received tonal and creative whiplash throughout the experience, making this feel like a script that was being written as the film was being shot. It’s also not particularly good at committing to any of the many subplots it continuously tacks onto the affair, whether in the minimalized abusive past with Abby’s gambling addicted father (Played by Brian Austin Green), or the thirty days in question that build the dynamic between Abby and Travis, which are quite literally summarized in a speedy montage of quirky moments and awkward romantic tension between them. Because of such, it’s one of those films that can easily be interpreted on mute, cementing about as much subtlety or nuance as a truck of fireworks crashing through a gasoline plant. In addition to this, the romance itself lacks chemistry, sizzle or any kind of even accidental magnetism to make it compelling in the minds of its audience, especially in the execution of Gardner’s Abby, which contends heavily for my least favorite character of the early cinematic calendar. Gardner’s deliveries are fine enough, capably sifting through the many emotional transitions that the story takes her character through, but the evolution of her direction is every bit strange as it is degrading, taking this once wholesome girl next door and saddling her with this briefly addressed subplot of being a poker guru, which takes her down some annoying and even mindless directions that completely degrades everything built around her intelligence and demeanor. She’s not alone, either, as the supporting cast are as one-dimensional as you would expect, but with half of the depth and believability in conveying the lines they are meant to spout. This means that the film is at its best when Travis and Abby are present, which isn’t necessarily a surprise, but one you wish the film would commit firmer towards, as the supporting cast constantly feel like contest winners who were written into the film at the last minute, with each of their characters being capably defined by single-word verbs. Lastly, while the film is brief at 90 minutes, it somehow attains the essence of twice its speed, with the sluggish pacing that conquers far too much far too quickly. As previously conveyed, the film’s romantic plot is resolved with a half hour left in the film, and from there the mayhem of what transpires in the climatic third act, while unpredictable in its lunacy, does completely grind the film to a screeching halt, thanks in whole to a direction that it didn’t earn with attention or commitment. This can be especially said for the complete lack of suspense or vulnerability that the script has built for its protagonists, making Travis the greatest MMA fighter on Earth who somehow fights in an abandoned warehouse, or Abby the greatest poker player on Earth who is somehow able to win every game relying on chance and luck. Because you’ve built each of them to be the pioneers of their respective hustles, it removes any urgency from the conflicts that revolve within their respective inner circles, in turn cementing a film with all of the stakes that cinema can conjure, but without any of the rocky resolution to disturb the characters’ peaceful existence.

OVERALL
Though “Beautiful Disaster” isn’t as offensive or romantically classless as the very same predecessors of the genre it continuously borrows so heavily from, its creative and tonal disjointment conveys a surface level adaptation that even fans of the book will find discerning. Sprouse’s charisma and captivating presence is a breath of fresh air in a film that continuously works against his Herculean efforts, but Kumble’s melting pot of ideas never converge as one cohesive construct, leaving this one disaster we should avoid, but one that is tough to look away from.

My Grade: 3/10 or F+