Photos courtesy of Altered Innocence
Sometimes, growing pains are inflicted more by other people than basic biology. Family and peers have the power to cause pain that results in hard life lessons, and more often than not, these are the most enduring pains of all. A striking example of this is displayed in the Icelandic film Beautiful Beings, writer/director Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s second feature-length endeavor. As Iceland’s official submission to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film, Beautiful Beings is a special exploration of youth that has the power to show both violence and love equally well.
Addi (Birgir Dagur Bjarkason) is a 14-year old boy who at first glance seems like the average teenage delinquent. He leads a gang of bullies who enjoy drugs, drinking, and mischief. One day, as this team of miscreants is cavorting around town, they come across a boy who has a very different reputation than them: Balli (Áskell Einar Pálmason) recently made local news stations for being badly beaten by bullies to the point where he wears a mask to hide the damage to his face. After bonding over cigarettes, Addi decides to befriend Balli and accept him into his gang, much to the chagrin of his thuggish friend Konni (Viktor Benóný Benediktsson). They all come to bond over their shared life experience of broken homes and trauma, but Addi’s life has been a bit different than the others’. His mother is a clairvoyant, and after he has some prophetic dreams, he realizes that he may have inherited his mother’s unique gift.
The performances of the four boys who lead Beautiful Beingsare especially strong and set the drama apart. These young actors run the gamut of different emotions and have the ability to both repulse the audience with their deplorable behavior, as well as endear them when their loyalty to each other surfaces. Their acting feels so effortless that — combined with the handheld camera work predominant in the film — there’s a sense that the viewer is right there with them, watching the events unfold in person alongside the boys. Oftentimes, it’s an unpleasant experience to the point where it’s jarring, but other times, it exudes a brotherly intimacy between the lead actors.
While many aspects of the film hold true for the majority of coming-of-age films (the classic notion that consequences have actions, for example), Guðmundsson’s choice to make Addi clairvoyant is a bold one. Addi’s surreal dreams and his relationship with his mother are an interesting divergence in an otherwise fairly straightforward, simple storyline. Beyond this, Addi’s blossoming abilities represent his growth into a more compassionate character, and they serve as a catalyst to some major plot points in the film. Nevertheless, this standout element could have evolved into something more fleshed out to give this drama an even more unique identity.
Much of Beautiful Beings is fueled by the violence that many of the boys have learned from past histories of abuse. All of the anger and resentment they feel about their upbringing comes out in violent acts towards others in a very cyclical “violence begets violence” display. However, as violent as these boys are, their tenderness for each other shines through and make their intense and brutal journey worth following every step of the way. No matter how uncomfortable Beautiful Beings is to watch, love continuously prevails and softens the blow of this raw drama.
—Andrea Riley