Beastly 2011 (Movie Review)

Dir: Daniel Barnz
Starring: Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer, Mary Kate Olsen
Dur: 1 hr 25 mins
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Romance
PG: A few kisses.

What is real love? Does it exist or is it only a creation of fiction? Beastly is a story of love, the romantic kind. It is primarily aimed at young adults and is set in a typical environment.

Kyle (Alex Pettyfer) is a popular college guy. He’s rich, handsome and famous. He is also supercilious and egotistical. He upsets a young witch, Kendra (Mary Kate Olsen), by humiliating and deriding her and is subsequently made to pay for his ungracious behaviour. He is disfigured and given a year to find someone who will say the words “I love you” to him or risk remaining hideous for the rest of his life. Kyle is appalled at his appearance. His famous father has no time and no guts to stick around him anymore and so stashes him away in a remote place. Here he begins to realize what it means to be ugly, something he scoffed at and poked fun at back in the day. He realizes that finding love is next to impossible for an unsightly person as himself. On one of his aimless wanderings he sees Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens), a girl who had a crush on him. He pursues her and gets her to unknowingly come and stay with him. Thereafter the story takes the traditional ‘love story’ route, concluding with a ‘happy ending’.


The film has an appealing though overused concept. Romance is not a favourite of mine, primarily because it has very little to offer in terms of novelty. The stories beat around a similar bush, with little more than a change of scenery. Youngsters will find it easy to relate with the characters and the story. Beauty and love are the key words and concepts explored. Beastly has educational value. It is loosely based on Alex Finn’s novel and is like a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast.     

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