Tom Wilkinson is an actor who never fails to please, even in an average, low-budget film like "The Beautiful Fantastic." In this slow-moving fable, the film follows the life of a foundling child, Miss Bella Brown, who grows up to be obsessed with order. She is especially skillful as a mousy librarian who seemingly knows every book in the local library. But her definition of order does not include the outdoors and the paradigm of what is considered order in nature: a garden.
The story unfolds around the flimsy premise that Miss Brown will be evicted from her home unless she can transform her unkempt backyard into a beautiful garden. The "magic garden" scenario is played out alongside a children's story that Bella is writing about a fantastic creature. The unconvincing romantic subplot evolves between a library patron who is an inventor and Miss Brown. Sadly, there is not a scintilla of chemistry between the characters.
The various narrative strands never come together in the film. But the most engaging scenes are those with Bella in conversation with her neighbor, a curmudgeon and lover of flora named Alfred "Alfie" Stevenson. As Alfie, Wilkinson shines with the one-liners and the character choices of a nasty old man with a heart of gold.
One especially glaring weakness with the film was the big build-up to the moment when Bella, working with the assistance of Alfie, finally completes her garden. Inexplicably, we never even see the entire garden, only glimpse a portion of the pond during the celebration.
The filmmakers dropped the ball in not creating for the viewer a spectacular floral enclave that was the fruit of the labors of Bella, Alfie, and the long-suffering Irishman, Vernon, a widower who is clearly in love with Bella. With the exception of Alfie, the characters in this film were one-dimensional, cardboard cutouts. And the viewers were left in the lurch, as we were frantically screaming, "Show us the garden!"
As a expert gardener, Alfie delivers a memorable metaphor of the ideal garden as "a world of beautifully ordered chaos." Unfortunately, the film had plenty of chaos, but lacked the beauty and the order of a garden that was never revealed to the audience.
The story unfolds around the flimsy premise that Miss Brown will be evicted from her home unless she can transform her unkempt backyard into a beautiful garden. The "magic garden" scenario is played out alongside a children's story that Bella is writing about a fantastic creature. The unconvincing romantic subplot evolves between a library patron who is an inventor and Miss Brown. Sadly, there is not a scintilla of chemistry between the characters.
The various narrative strands never come together in the film. But the most engaging scenes are those with Bella in conversation with her neighbor, a curmudgeon and lover of flora named Alfred "Alfie" Stevenson. As Alfie, Wilkinson shines with the one-liners and the character choices of a nasty old man with a heart of gold.
One especially glaring weakness with the film was the big build-up to the moment when Bella, working with the assistance of Alfie, finally completes her garden. Inexplicably, we never even see the entire garden, only glimpse a portion of the pond during the celebration.
The filmmakers dropped the ball in not creating for the viewer a spectacular floral enclave that was the fruit of the labors of Bella, Alfie, and the long-suffering Irishman, Vernon, a widower who is clearly in love with Bella. With the exception of Alfie, the characters in this film were one-dimensional, cardboard cutouts. And the viewers were left in the lurch, as we were frantically screaming, "Show us the garden!"
As a expert gardener, Alfie delivers a memorable metaphor of the ideal garden as "a world of beautifully ordered chaos." Unfortunately, the film had plenty of chaos, but lacked the beauty and the order of a garden that was never revealed to the audience.