Beautiful Disaster

Grade: B

Beautiful Disaster has “straight-to-video” written all over it. It’s loud, shrill, annoying, contains few recognizable faces, unbelievable character developments, and is not that great, even for a romantic comedy. It slunk in and out of theaters as a Fathom Event, or the most limited of releases. Under-seen. Under-screened. I won’t say underrated, because I’m overrating it. It shouldn’t work, and most of the time, it doesn’t. The only reason to see it is because of lead actress Virginia Gardner (from Fall). I think we have a star in her. You almost won’t be able to stand how plucky, adorable, hip, and scene-stealing she is. It’s a testament to her craft that she is able to pull this movie so far out of the mud, when it would have fallen flat under so many other peoples’ watches. I’d go ahead and call her our next Reese Witherspoon.

She plays Abby – a college freshman starting school in Sacramento. Her mother has been out of the picture for a while, and she’d grown up as a poker prodigy in Vegas. Her dad, chronically in one kind of debt or another, would call upon her expertise to win some games and bail him out. At school, she has a Meet Cute with Parker, when she throws a frisbee that hits him in an uncomfortable place.

I couldn’t find anything wrong with him; he seemed like a perfectly fine suitor. So that of course means she will instead end up with Travis: a blunt, crude, off-putting character whose hobby is fighting. He is played by Dylan Sprouse, one of the twins who shared the role of Adam Sandler’s foster son in Big Daddy. He enjoys participating in a secret late-night weekend activity called The Circle. The first rule about it is you don’t talk about it. Sound familiar? Cliches abound throughout Beautiful Disaster. In a plot point that’s contrived even for this movie, Abby and Travis end up living together for a month (in a Sweet November type situation) because she lost a bet. Abby’s best friend and her boyfriend seem to know they’re supporting players in someone else’s story, as they politely wait in the wings and show up sporadically for some comic relief – never pulling too much focus. And in one scene, Abby enters a parking garage just in time to overhear some pertinent dialogue that explains everything.

Though Gardner is responsible for 90% of the film’s success, it’s not all bad. The soundtrack and the bright, bold colors in the cinematography appropriately take us into a teenage romcom. Director Roger Kumble knows how to film a nice montage. There are two love scenes, one of which is among the best I’ve ever seen. It took me back to the summer of 2000, when I was a lonely single 19-year-old, not doing much except working a lot, going to the movies by myself, and left to think “maybe one day…” There’s no nudity, except for the kind I’m not interested in seeing, but it pushed some buttons for me and affected me like it was that time again. The other scene is one of the worst, with forced unfunny slapstick that would be beneath an Airplane or Naked Gun movie.

Beautiful Disaster (what an appropriate title) is a forgettable mess singlehandedly rescued by a star-making lead presence in the absolutely bewitching Virginia Gardner. Fall, which she appeared in last summer, was more of a thrill ride or a spectacle than a real movie. It felt like a challenge. “Can you make it through this?” But on that level, I quite enjoyed it. I liked Beautiful Disaster BECAUSE of her. I learned after seeing it that it’s based on a series of books, which I can only assume is the Y.A. genre. The Y-est of the A. There’s a sequel coming up – Beautiful Wedding. Already filmed, with most of the same cast, currently in post-production. I’ll see it, and might even read it first. I’ve got the fever.

Grade: B