Sweet, If Not Spellbinding: Beautiful Creatures

Should you spend a spell with Beautiful Creatures? Scarsdale mom-and-daughter team Deborah Skolnik and Clara Enders weigh in with their reviews of the witchcraft film. By Mom Deborah Skolnik - If you're the parent of a tween, you know it's an out-of-this-world experience. No, not cleaning up cast-off sweat socks and listening to cries of "My hair looks hoooorrrible!"—that's the everyday stuff. What I mean is, you're sitting through lots of movies about vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural species. In the case of Beautiful Creatures, you'll be communing with witches—a habit they'd have hung you for in olde Salem, but which in twenty-first century Scarsdale will merely claim two hours of your life. You could do worse.

As the film opens, we're introduced to Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich), a 17-year-old whose interests are broader than the confines of his small Southern town. Tired of his narrow-minded girlfriend, he's intrigued when a new gal shows up at school: Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert). Soon, Ethan is working his way into Lena's heart and secrets. She's a witch—or "caster," as she prefers to be called, in a humorous nod to our P.C. culture.

Problem is, Lena's not sure if she's a light (aka good) or dark witch yet: It'll be decided on her next birthday, and she has no say. In truth, she may already be doomed to darkness, since she's bound in a curse dating back to the Civil War. Oddly, Ethan may play a role in the curse too, since he's had some strange Dixie-era dreams of late. Can the two undo the hex and lead Lena to the Light Side?

If you're as unconcerned about Lena's fate as most adults would be, just sit back and watch the pair's tender romance, spackled with plenty of witty banter, unfold. Guiltily wish, as I did, that Ethan were better looking: Every time the camera lingered on his face, I wanted it to pan out again.

Don't bother investing much in the supporting characters, from eccentric aunts to Holly Roller neighbors, who flit by so briefly they're meaningless. What's more frustrating is that the dark side's evils aren't explained. Lena's mother and cousin are both dark divas, but all that seems to mean is they wear hot dresses, drive sports cars, and seduce men. Sounds good to me. In fact, the film relies too heavily on shallow, outdated conventions to convey its players' essences . The bad women toss their hair and go "Mwahahaha!", while Ethan's rebelliousness is signaled by his love for a Kurt Vonnegut paperback. When was the last time you saw a teen reading Vonnegut....or a paperback, period?

Despite these drawbacks, Ethan and Lena make a plucky pair, and you'll be rooting for this new generation to upend age-old prejudices and problems. Ultimately, this movie isn't so much about casters as the spell of young love.

Note: This PG-13 film won't leave you struggling to explain the birds and the bees to your wide-eyed 8- or 9-year-old, but scary special effects may freak out more sensitive kids. It's probably best for the 10 or 11-and-up crowd.

By Daughter Clara Enders: I've wanted to see Beautiful Creatures since I began seeing the enticing commercials on TV. The special effects and the cliffhanger movie clips, like the ones of the witches using their powers, pulled me in. Beautiful Creatures is about a girl named Lena Duchannes, who moves to a small town called Gatlin in South Carolina. Some girls in her class accuse her of worshipping Satan, and when they start to recite a Catholic prayer, Lena makes the windows in the classroom explode. When the town hears about this, everyone avoids her, except for one person- Evan Wate. When her car breaks down, he offers her a ride home. She hesitates, but lets him give her a ride anyway. He sees her creepy house, and this intrigues him more. When he goes to her house the next day, he meets her uncle who also possesses such powers. Evan learns that Lena is a witch- or "caster" the term she prefers. Lena has a marking of numbers on her hand, which tells her how many days until she turns sixteen. On her sixteenth birthday she will have her "claiming" and find out if she will be a dark or light caster. Because her late-ish mother is a dark witch, everyone expects her to be a dark caster. She doesn't want to be dark and learns that her family became dark-casters due to a curse that was caste in the late 1800's. She must find a way to reverse this curse, or she will be claimed as a dark caster.

I thought this was a very good movie. Alice Englert and Alden Ehrenreich both did fantastic jobs acting, and I could really feel the emotions in the sad scenes. Emmy Rossum, who is in one of my favorite movies, "The Day After Tomorrow," also did a good job as Lena's evil cousin, Ridley Duchannes. Ridley has two different sides, and Rossum was able to portray both sides very well. The special effects in this film were really believable, like when a member of the Duchannes family used their powers. Because Beautiful Creatures is part of a three book series, I think if other movies are made, this could become the new "Twilight." Both series include supernatural characters, romance, and eccentric families. I thought this was an awesome movie, and would recommend it to anyone who likes supernatural movies, especially "Twilight.