Beautiful Creatures

An unpredictable dark comedy Pulp Fiction fans will love!
I saw this movie with a little hesitation. I wasn't sure what to expect, but what I had read sounded all too interesting. And from the beginning, I was completely enjoying it.

The dark comedy stars Rachel Weisz (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Chain Reaction) and Susan Lynch (Waking Ned Devine) as two women trapped in bad relationships. The two meet by accident, when Dorothy (Lynch) stumbles across Petula (Weisz) being beaten by her boyfriend. As the boyfriend begins choking Petula, Dorothy realizes she must help her. Acting on instinct, Dorothy grabs a large pipe and whacks the man in the head. The two take the unconscious man back to Dorothy's apartment. There, the two introduce themselves. When the boyfriend wakes up, he falls from the bathtub (where Petula and Dorothy had placed him for the time being) he bangs his head. Now Petula and Dorothy have a dead body to deal with. Not just some man either. Petula's boyfriend is the younger brother of a very wealthy and very powerful...

Dorothy & Petula Have A Body To Die For
While this movie had a promising start, it sort of crumbled like a cookie by the middle. Billed as a black comedy/suspense thriller, Beautiful Creatures stars Rachel Weisz and Susan Lynch and Petula and Dorothy, respectively. At the outset we find both women are involved in abusive relationships with very despicable men. Through a chance meeting, Dorothy intervenes, with an usual choice of a weapon, while Petula's boyfriend, Brian, is throttling her, and he is knocked unconscious. Fearful of legal entanglements and repercussions, they drag him back to Dorothy's apartment and try to decide how to best proceed. Brian regains consciousness, and while still suffering from too much drink, he falls and hits his head, ending his own life. This sets up the rest of the movie, as the women have to now deal with a dead body.

Now Brian, who is well off, works for his brother Ronnie, who is even more well off, so the women concoct a scheme to make it appear as if Brian has been kidnapped,...

Don't underestimate these women!
There is a myth in Hollywood that strong women characters have to be strong women (i.e. Erin Brockovich). What I liked about the film "Beautiful Creatures" is that the lead female characters, Petula and Dorothy, are not strong women initially. They have allowed themselves to be dominated by physically, mentally and sexually abusive men. Neither seem to be capable of helping themselves out of these relationships. But, ironically, they each have the ability to help the other. And in helping eachother, they find the strength that had been beaten out of them. Even though the film addresses a serious subject, I found it to be very funny without making light of the domestic abuse issue. Susan Lynch is terrific as Dorothy, the fed-up heroine who comes to the aid of a stranger and finds herself facing murder charges. And "Mummy" fans will hardly recognize Rachel Weisz from her most familiar role as "Evie." Weisz is proving herself to be one of the most versatile...

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