Beautiful Beings is a masterfully told story of the struggles of being a teen in an imperfect world full of imperfect families and imperfect situations. It is a raw and yet at times heart warming look in to the lives of four teen boys navigating a train wreck of circumstances. Its dark plot is skillfully developed with subtle misdirection and haunting foreshadowing. The clever pacing captures the intensity and destructiveness of these damaged lives all while offering reprieves of humor and cathartic tenderness.
At the root of it the story has been told countless times. An outsider is brought into a circle of friends, harsh teen cruelties and outright disdain slowly melt into new dynamics and personal growth. It is The Breakfast Club but with a much more unpretentious group of troubled youth. A sort of Stranger Things but with very non-paranormal dangers. And with the highest praise one could say it is retelling this narrative with the honesty and insight of films like The Perks of Being a Wallflower or the original Let the Right Ones In. This film triumphs in is brutal honesty and is mesmerizing in its depiction of life in a weathered blue-collar Reykjavík suburb. Its characters and dialogue hit masterfully again and again with very uniquely Icelandic circumstances and yet it remains universal in its observation of struggling families.
Part of what I love most about what writer-Director Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson has done so well with this film is its wonderful casting. The characters are so awkwardly enjoyable to discover. And very careful consideration to the physical size of the characters helps build the narrative. The smallest are the most vulnerable the largest the most menacing. And the performances he has inspired from everyone, in particularly the young leads, is truly award worthy. These actors deliver strong consistently motivated characters who you quickly fell you have known for a lifetime. Each actor clearly understood the purpose of their character and delivers the needed dynamics with a clarity one would expect from a fly on the wall documentary.
There is one one particularly refreshing aspect of the modern teen depicted in this film that I don't think I have seen done so well before. These teens, with all their troubles (and boy do they have troubles) have grown up in a world that is starting to address toxic masculinity. They really struggle with catching themselves being outright jerks. Being teens that make impulsive choices with little thought of how profoundly their actions could impact those around them or being drawn to responding to insult with escalations of violence. All this is happening while they also trying to influence better of themselves and their piers. And by shining a light on their own actions, by coming to the defense of those who are being shamed for exposing personal vulnerabilities or with unexpected selfless actions they enable changes. Now to be clear these teens are still brutally crude, and groose, quick to anger and cruel but they've grown up at least in a system that has taught them to question this. It's characters in this kind of shifting world that I haven't seen depicted before so thoughtfully.
Beautiful Beings continues the growing trend of more honest and therefore often darker looks into the coming of age narrative. It needs to be said this film depicts and addresses social poverty, teen cruelty, violence, self harm, teen sexuality, mental illness, drug use and even rape with brutal honesty. And it is a more perfect movie having depicted these realities honestly. It is a wonderfully crafted, hauntingly acted modern look at teens struggling in a brutally imperfect world to discover for the first time or retain what makes them Beautiful Beings.
