Beautiful Beings

A heartwarming story of teenage self-destruction and graphic violence. No, really.

I can't stop thinking about this film. On the face of it, it's about four teenage boys from variously broken homes who smoke, fight and swagger around 1990s Reykjavik causing trouble and doing fairly horrendous things.

But they are friends, and that's what this really is. It's a film about friendship, enduring friendship through the extremes. Sticking up for your mates (even when you should know better). Having your mates stick up for you.

These boys only have each other. Balli has no one to start with - bullied at school, ignored at home, he lives a filthy, pathetic life until Addi takes him into the gang (with the animalistic Konni and weirdo Siggi) after taking pity on him.

We follow the boys on a series of misadventures of teenage impetuousness which build - or sink - in horrifying ways towards the film's conclusion. Konni fights. Addi grows. Balli lives. Siggi pulls bogies out of his nose and chases people with them, but that's not the point.

There's a mildly supernatural aspect to it all as Addi experiences premonitions about what may unfold - they may be real but equally may just be him maturing and seeing the consequences (while doing too many mushrooms).

It's rare to see such fully formed, three-dimensional characters, but by the end of the film you know these kids, you're rooting for them (in spite of yourself). You're one of the gang.

Sturla Brandth Grøvlen's camerawork is divine, director Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson's story is moving and believable, the performances are perfect (especially Birgir Dagur Bjarkason, Áskell Einar Pálmason, Viktor Benóný Benediktsson and Snorri Rafn Frímannsson as the kids), the soundtrack is addictive. It's the whole package.

(In Game of Thrones, they spent a fortune working on making the dragon fire realistic, on the basis that if you believe the fire, you'll believe the dragon. Fake VFX would have ruined it. Here, it's the fight scenes. Believe the violence and you'll believe the teenagers, and I don't know if there's an Oscar for best fight choreography but Jón Viðar Arnþórsson and Imma Helga Arnþórsdóttir who did these scenes should win it. As the last reviewer said, this really does look like kids beating each other up - and RIP the extra who gets a door smashed full in her face, I assume she just died in real life.)

I can't stop thinking about this film. And I can't recommend it highly enough.

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Rewatch: Such fantastic details that are too easily missed... The boy Konni trips up in the playground at the start is the same boy who hits Balli in the tunnel. It's just cyclic violence passed on and Konni/Addi are never aware they triggered it all. Such attention to detail, it's magnificent, there's not a wasted second in the film.

It's been a while ago since I've seen this one, but I still remember how well I liked it. It's hard to find movies like this, ones which don't feel like movies, where a bunch of life stuff happens which feels believable, and you're just along for the ride.

The directing was really good. The scenery was immersive. The acting from what I could tell (not my native language) seemed pretty great. All of the people felt like they fit their role. In other words, the one who was supposed to be the tough one looked the part. The one who played the wimp, looked like the biggest dork. The father, especially. The mother, and even the sister. Even the boys they fought felt like they genuinely fit the part. The fight scenes felt like real stuff that could happen. I didn't feel myself thinking, "yeah right". Pretty much everything felt believable, and like I was watching more of a documentary than a movie.

Now, this is my kind of movie. I like movies which don't feel like a movie. I like that "being there" vibe. I want to feel like a fly on the wall. This film delivers that, and I don't think there was one scene I didn't feel that way in. It doesn't try to hype up a bunch of fluff, or influence you to feel a certain way about it. It just presents some scenes where the sequence of events tell the story. Even when some extreme events occur, it fits the context, and feels believable.

It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. So, if you're looking for larger than life caricatures, epic worlds, elaborate costumes, distorted reality, exciting stunts or scary monsters, then you'll likely miss the whole point.

Some other things I remember being interesting:

I found myself wondering what happened to that boy's face, and they didn't tell us straight away. The way it was finally revealed was woven into the narrative in a way which felt natural. It didn't feel like they were showing you this so you would know. It felt like I was one of the boys in the scene, and just as curious as they were. When they reacted to the story, it mirrored how I felt inside.

I also like the way the drug scenes felt. The actors didn't act like they were trying to act high. It just felt like they were high, and behaving the way that high people act.

There was a tragic scene at the end where something was done to one of the boys, and it actually felt believable. The way that the boy was shaken by it felt genuine.

The weakest part of the film was the revenge scene with the father. Although, it wasn't bad at all. It made sense in context, and didn't feel too predictable. I managed to feel a bit surprised by it, and not in a way where it just felt like that because it didn't fit. The fallout afterwards made me feel upset.

The ending wasn't what I'd hoped, and felt a little short, but it didn't disappoint. The circumstances which led to it were, but not the acting or storyline. It worked, and was a nice way to finish the sequence of events.

On a more personal note, I like that it had some really attractive actors in it. Somehow, that always makes the characters feel more believable. I feel more engaged in the sequence of events, as well as immersed in that world. Probably, because I actually want to be there, and with them. It helps me to connect. Plus, I really don't care to stare at ugly boys acting stupid. Having attractive actors makes even the dumbest stuff they do seem more interesting. I mean, even the wimpy boy is sorta cute, in an awkward way. It helps me feel sorry for him, and want things to turn out OK. However, it's also fun to watch him suffer. There's nothing fun about watching an ugly freak suffer. It's almost too much.

There don't seem to be enough movies like this. That's tragic, because I could get lost in stories like this all day long. Afterwards, I feel like I lived that experience, and those are my memories. It's the sort of memories I've experienced in my own real life. It makes my life feel like it's been even more interesting and memorable. It deepens my experience of being human, and a guy. It makes me miss the good ole days, when I was wild like that. It makes me want to go and do some more guy things, and get into even more hijinks.

I hope they make more good movies which feel like memories and not movies.

Baldur has the look that abused kids often have - especially the gentle ones. Totally closed in on himself, hang-dog, afraid to look anyone in the eye. Trying to shrink, trying to go invisible. We are not surprised to see him bullied: his manner is so fearful of attack that he invites it.

We are surprised, however, at how violent the bullying gets when one his classmates smashes him across the face with a wooden post. Suffering a broken nose and fractured skull, Baldur then has to wear a white mask to school, like a bad guy in a pantomime, and this only marginalises him further.

When Baldur's situation and demeanour again attracts unwanted attention from other youths, we expect yet more bullying and at first, we get it. Siggi, Konni and Addi invite themselves into Baldur's life, heedless of his obvious wish to be left alone. They barge their way into his house, and when Konni kicks a hole in the wall, freak out a little bit about what "Balli"'s mother might say. It turns out she doesn't really care, because she's barely around anyway, and the house is squalid and most of the walls and doors are already damaged by Balli's violent stepfather, who also shot out one of the teenager's eyes when he was four, with a BB-gun the stepfather wanted to "find out of it was loaded".

The boys then actually clean Balli's house, and he is more or less a member of their gang of drug-using, vandalising, oft-violent misfits. The other two would have been content with just victimising Baldur, but you see, Addi too has a stepfather, and he knows what it's like.

We know this group is heading for trouble and even greater violence. At first, we empathise only with Baldur, the least-violent and least-trouble causing. The gang seems indistinguishable from the kids that attacked him previously. However we come to know and care for them, especially Addi.

The movie is beautifully shot, which contrasts with the ugly behaviour of its characters. The music is also beautiful at times. Many might find its characters repellent, and it was hard for me to take a lot of the time, but by the time we meet Baldur's stepfather, and realise the connection Baldur and Addi both share, we understand why they are the way they are, and we totally understand why they feel their story needs to take the violent turn it does.

These "beautiful beings" were left behind. They apparently have very little supervision at school - I don't remember any teachers in any of the school scenes - and their parents are absent, either off on drug/alcohol benders or throwing themselves into mysticism like tarot cards when the problems their kids have are urgent and absolutely real.

Young men take what options they have open to them: here they felt there was only one option.

After "Heartstone", I was very interested to see what Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson was going to do next. With "Beautiful Beings", an aching, beautiful small-time masterpiece, he's outdone himself.

Lastly, the performance of Áskell Einar Pálmason in the movie as Baldur/Balli is a masterwork. He is so utterly believable the movie could be a documentary about his life. It's so real that our hearts break, not only for the Balli on the screen, but all the kids in similar situations wherever on earth you find people.

By watching this film, you are transported into the lives of these four boys. I mean, the movie is so involving that you feel like you are part of the gang. The actors, especially Áskell Einar Pálmason, Birgir Dagur Bjarkason and Viktor Benóný Benediktsson are exceptional.

The characters aren't one dimensional simpletons. There's a lot of contradictions, transformation and growth throughout the movie and the express everything to perfection. They let you know what the characters are feeling and thinking even when they don't say anything. Áskell Einar Pálmason probably got the hardest role to play, as Balli, the bullied boy who'd never had a friend before. At the end of the movie, Balli looks like a completely different person. He is transformed by the friendship from the other boys.

Probably different people watching this movie will take away different things. The story approaches multiple themes. For me, the biggest and most moving one is "friendship". The way Addi offers his friendship to Balli and how far the four boys are willing to go to stand up for their friends is really moving. I think I will remember this movie for the rest of my life.

I'm giving 9 stars because of the mystical theme, which I was hoping to understand by the end of the movie, but I couldn't. I will probably watch this movie again. Maybe I'll get it the next time around.

The young cast was incredible in this. There were a lot of nuance to their acting, and they brought a lot of depth to their characters. This isn't an easy topic to tackle, and to be able to potray something so raw and real at such a young age really shows how talanted the actors are in this. The story is both beautiful and heartbreaking. I understand the ending, but damn, if I didn't wish for it not to end like that. I guess that's where my disappointment comes in. I understand and respect the ending, but it was also predictable and I just wanted more for the characters, but life doesn't always unfold the way we want. I absolutley loved the first half, the second half became a bit to repetitive, and too brutal for my liking which combined with ending made me wishing for more. I don't know, it felt like there was more to the story than where, and how, it ended.