Beastly

(M) Roadshow DVD/BD

Beastly is an edgy teen romance about learning how to see past false surfaces to discover true inner beauty.

In a clever contemporary re-telling of the Beauty and the Beast story, the film is about Kyle Kingston (Alex Pettyfer) who’s 17, popular, rich and gets whatever he wants … but he also has a vicious cruel side, fuelled by his obsession with the “in crowd” and his contempt for those who don’t fit in.

Prone to mocking and humiliating outcast classmates, he zeroes in on Goth girl Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen), inviting her to the school’s extravagant environmental bash. Kendra accepts and, true to form, Kyle blows her off in a particularly harsh fashion.

She seeks revenge in the form of a spell that physically transforms him into someone unrecognisable. She tells him she is making him “as aggressively unattractive on the outside as you are on the inside”.

The only way to reverse the curse is to find someone who will love him in his new form — a task he doesn’t think possible.

Although the ideas in this film are not new, it would be an interesting discussion starter for high schoolers about the importance of grace, humility and the ability to treat those around you the way you would like to be treated yourself — something Jesus found to be one of the more attractive attributes.

Adrian Drayton