Too much of everything

Simply A Masterpiece

People are voting emotionally.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Absolutely lovely! Chocolat meets Notting Hill!! Captivated from the start! Skipping through channels and came to abrupt halt with this! A 5 min coffee break ended up getting lost in Bella's garden! Thought provoking at time, sentimental and heart warming with that ever so charming British humor...or is it sarcasm! This film exposes the inner magic and creative charm we have seem to have lost in society today!

My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library. We both enjoyed it greatly. The story is entertaining and has happy endings.Set and filmed in the UK, Jessica Brown Findlay (of "Downton Abbey" fame) is a single aspiring author, Bella Brown, working in the local public library. At the beginning we see a glimpse of her backstory, she was abandoned in a box outside, was raised in a Catholic orphanage. She grew up to be bright but also OCD. She has an issue one night outside and falls, hurting herself, and she meets Andrew Scott as Vernon, he works for the old man next door as his housekeeper and cook but this morning brings over his identical twin redhead daughters of about 8 and they cook breakfast for Bella. Then one day on her job at the library she meets Jeremy Irvine as Billy, a young inventor who does research in the library. And finally she meets her next door neighbor, Tom Wilkinson as Alfie Stephenson, seemingly very unfriendly. The visit that kicks everything in high gear is the man who Bella leases from, a neighbor has complained that her backyard "garden" has been completely neglected and she has 30 days to fix it or be evicted. All of this makes for entertaining and often funny situations, all the actors are good in their roles. SPOILERS: With the help of her friends, and the close "supervision" of Alfie, who turns out to be a horticulturist, Bella gets the garden in shape. She gets the boy in the end and, when Alfie dies, finds that he had owned her house and gave it to her in her will. Plus she published her children's book.

"This Beautiful Fantastic" (honestly a pretty bad title sadly) is a British/American co-production that premiered last year (2016) and is the most recent work by writer and director Simon Aboud. For him, it is the second full feature film and this one here has all the possibilities to become more famous than his first work starring Timothy Spall btw. He also worked on several short films, for example a Paul McCartney music video. Anyway, back to this one here. The lead actress is Jessica Brown Findlay and it is a bit of a breakthrough performance. First of all, she is amazingly gorgeous in my opinion, a mix of Scarlett Johansson and Mary Elizabeth Winstead with an ounce of Gemma Arterton. People who still say today that British girls are not attractive really need to take a look at her. I see she was also in Downton Abbey, but I never really liked that show, so no further comment there. As for this film here, I think she also shows she is a good actress, even if the role eventually does not have as much to offer as it initially seems. But she does a good job with the OCD parts for example. The rest of the cast also includes some well-known names. Jeremy Irvine has been in some known films already and Andrew Scott is known to many too, mostly for appearing in the (horribly overrated) Sherlock series. But he is good there and I also liked him in this 100-minute movie here. Actually, I wanted him to get the girl eventually, but oh well I guess it's fine what they did as friendship is a nice option too. I just found him more likable somehow than the actual love interest.And then there is also 2-time Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson, who was probably the very best thing about the film, which also shows that he is part of the most emotional moment at the very end and I found it pretty sad, even if it was not entirely unexpected with his earlier comment during a phone conversation. I read people compare this film to Amélie on some occasions, but I am not sure I would agree. Yes there is a moment here and there where the tone and atmosphere was similar, but as a whole I see almost no parallels apart from the central female character. I would also say it is slightly worse, but has its own strengths nonetheless and the film shines for entirely different reasons than Amélie. Oh yeah and ducks are amazing, no doubt about it. All in all, I believe this was a pretty good watch, sometimes even great thanks to Wilkinson, that I would not count anywhere near my very best of the year, but a fairly convincing film from start to finish that had me curious about what would happen next to the characters. Maybe my preference for Scott's character also had to do with me liking the actor as the eventual love interest is also a likable character without a doubt, especially with the final revelation that was as simple as making sense. It was good because if he really had cheated on her and the explanation of her seeing him with another chick would have been slightly weird with how she reacted, even if this also had to do with her illness. Anyway, it's still good the film did not focus on the illness entirely, but just as part of the side action. Finally, I want to finish my review with a little reference to a scene that showed everybody how much the relationship was helping her. This would be a scene with the door that she obsessively closes early on, but when she is off to see her sweetheart, then she just lets it open and forgets about the disorder completely. That's all from me now. Go see this film if you get a chance too. You will not be disappointed.

A strange little movie this but it will no doubt appeal to lovers of the "British Gem" movie genre. Personally I find "British Gem" the 2 most feared words in the English language (or possibly first equal with "Human Resources") but evidently enough movie goers find them appealing enough for the British to keep churning them out. That's fine with me as long as I am warned in the movie's promotional material so I can do something more enjoyable, like plunge my hand into a vat of boiling oil.Some reviewers have compared this movie to Amelie but I wouldn't agree. While the first few minutes of the movie attempts to give some bizarre back story to explain how eccentric the heroine (Bella) supposedly is, for the duration of the movie itself she acts completely normally, apart from a touch of OCD. Her apparent need to be orderly certainly plays no part in the story, in fact it is completely contradictory to the way she lives, with her garden in chaos, which is somewhat confusing. Amelie was strong and always in control and her quirkiness was pivotal to that movie. Bella is never in control and she is not inherently quirky, she is just lost, unfulfilled and drifting. However it is true that both movies rely on the appeal of an attractive actress who has a certain quality that one would be hard pressed to accurately define - perhaps "instantly lovable" is somewhere near.As others have noted the "plot" is completely predictable and the "characters" are all the usual suspects for this kind of movie. It is all a bit of fluff and I doubt it will be challenging "War and Peace" for a place in World literature any time soon.For all that I enjoyed this movie more than I expected and this is entirely down to the actors, who generally handled their fairly thankless and undemanding roles with subtlety. In the wrong hands this movie could very easily have tipped the scales from just teetering on the edge of working into something horrific, and it is a credit to the cast that they pitched it just right.I saw this movie with a group and the comments ranged from "the worst movie I have ever seen in my life" to "quaint" and "exquisite". My view is somewhere in between.