7/31/2023 0 Comments Its a beautiful life movieBut as a writing choice, it just ruins an entire portion of the movie because it is so deeply unfun to have to watch. Ollie is his only real friend and it’s hard to recognize when your only friend sucks. I can empathize with Elliot here, of course. And Elliot can’t help but get wrapped into his orbit. He says terribly insensitive and unfunny things at every turn. But on the other and far more pressing hand, Ollie is an incredibly annoying, trite, and irredeemable character. I appreciate this part of Elliot’s conflict with Ollie. The hardest workers don’t always win over the people with the purest talent, or even just the best looks. So when Ollie comes back into the picture later, he’s rightfully angry that Elliot is getting the chance at stardom that Ollie had actually worked hard for. But Ollie isn’t a very good singer and loses Suzanne’s attention, so he gets flustered and Elliot jumps in to save him, wowing everyone there, Suzanne and Lilly included. Ollie has a gig singing and Elliot is supposed to play guitar for him. Ollie is the reason Elliot is in this situation in the first place. Instead, we waste our time with an absolutely aggravating best friend Ollie ( Sebastian Jessen) as the principal antagonist. There’s so much room for organic and deep conflict between these two potentially complicated characters, but instead, the movie opts for the most tactless and disinteresting route possible. Plus, the biggest source of their conflict comes to a head with a big twist that screams conflict for the sake of conflict. The movie had all the right elements to make me love these two separately and together, but for once in my life, I wish it had been a longer movie so we could spend more time watching them grow together. Beautiful people and beautiful music are one thing, but a beautiful life requires a sustained emotional connection and moments over time, not just a splash in the pan after one raw conversation and ta-da - they’re in love. I can’t just be told that these two characters are suddenly in love. If you’re going to center romance in your story, I have to fall in love too. I’m frankly sick of movies, regardless of their platform, their star power, or their run times that cram two characters together without doing the diligence of making me fall for them. They’re obviously destined for one another the second Lilly locks eyes on Elliot, but when they finally collide, the romance is dull, the sex is prude, and there is nary a spark lit in a single scene thereafter. We’re told but never shown that they’ve both struggled to find their places in the world. We’re told but never shown the pain they both suffer from their pasts. There is just not enough time to get emotionally invested in Elliot or Lilly as individuals or as a couple. Like Elliot, I have a well of experiences to draw from but a hard time tapping into them, something A Beautiful Life understands well as we watch Elliot and Lilly spend the first half of the movie dancing around their emotions and the devastating pasts that hold them back.īut A Beautiful Life suffers enormously from its brevity, its contrived conflict, and its corny antagonist. All the external validation in the world is rarely enough to keep me from guessing whether I’ll last in this career as long as I want to and whether what I’m producing is even having the impact I want it to. I spend every day of my life questioning whether I’m good enough, whether I’m better than other people who do the same thing I do, and whether that even matters. You have a hobby, not a career.Īs a professional musician myself, Elliot’s fear of diving into a career in music is palpable. And even with all that skill, if you can’t channel it into music that moves other people? Forget about it. If you’re not a good singer or don’t have an ear for music, no amount of training can turn you into something that others are just blessed with from the start. Forget about the ups and downs of gigging and making a living, your entire career, and tied to it, your self-worth, is based on a skill that you are either born with the ability to sharpen to perfection or you aren’t. There is so much devastating pressure to be a successful musician. The film is about Elliot ( Christopher), a fisherman with a hidden talent as a singer-songwriter who is discovered one night by Suzanne, the widow of the greatest Danish musician of all-time ( Christine Albeck Børge) who convinces him to record a song with her daughter Lilly ( Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). I’m so frustrated having to review A Beautiful Life, a Danish-language Netflix Original movie directed by Mehdi Avaz and written by Stefan Jaworski.
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