Movie Reviews
Beautiful People
28 July 2000
For some reason, Beautiful People is being described as a
comedy. Then again, films like Brassed Off and East is East
were labelled the same way. But despite their generous supply
of laughs, "comedy" is misleading. Like so many
British films, they are set in the real world - and surprisingly
enough, humour just happens to be part of real life. Even
more than the others, Beautiful People also has a pervading
misery.
Set in London in October 1993, while the Bosnian civil war
rages on the continent, Beautiful People unravels a melange
of stories, featuring vaguely interlinked characters, in a
way reminiscent of the recent Magnolia, or a few multi-plotted
Robert Altman films (or, if you want to be less arty, an episode
of Neighbours).
Written and directed by Bosnian-born filmmaker Jasmin Dizdar,
the stories occasionally merge or intersect, but on the whole
their only connection is the war. Refugees have different
London adventures, Londoners confront their own prejudices,
and (in two cases) Britons find themselves in the thick of
the war itself. We meet a large ensemble of characters. Some
are amusing, many are sympathetic, but only a few start out
as especially likeable.
One of these is trainee doctor Portia Thornton (the very
cute Charlotte Coleman), the rebellious daughter of a Tory
MP (Charles Kay), who shocks her debby family by falling in
love with a handsome Bosnian patient. Unfortunately, they
are such an ideal couple that their romance is one of the
least interesting stories.
More lively (if less cheery) goings-on can be found in the
home of Portia's colleague Dr. Mouldy (Nicholas Farrell),
suffering from fatigue and marital breakdown, while convincing
another refugee patient, raped in Bosnia by enemy soldiers,
not to kill her baby.
Dizdar has made an ambitious debut feature. Some of it works;
some of it doesn't. Sadly, one of its more dubious achievements
is the fact it seems overlong, despite packing a dozen plotlines
into a mere 107 minutes. Eventually, it reveals its true,
optimistic colours, emphasised in the final few minutes by
a montage of concurrent celebration scenes. Even the characters
are ennobled. A few of them have done some truly terrible
things, but in the end, you dislike nobody. Another feelgood
movie.
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