Beautiful Disaster (2023)
Beautiful Disaster is a shallow romantic drama based on the bestseller by Jamie McGuire and starring Dylan Sprouse and Virginia Gardner.
It was directed by Roger Kumble who made a name for himself with Cruel Intentions (1999), starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Reese Witherspoon, which played like a fast and loose remake of Dangerous Liaisons.
More recently he directed After We Collided - the second part of the After-trilogy - and that’s how he first worked with Dylan Sprouse. His co-lead Virginia Gardner was recently seen in the successful indie-thriller Fall.
The two of them make for a fetching couple in this romantic teen drama, which will probably appeal to most of the younger audience that also liked the After-movies.
Gardner plays Abby Abernathy, a famous (underage) poker player and college student with a troubled past. Sprouse is Travis Maddox, generally known as the residing bad boy around campus, who only believes in hook-up’s and one night stands. His nickname is - can you believe it? - Mad Dog.
Through some mad coincidence like a broken shower Abby and her best friend America (Libe Barer) can’t live in their own Sacramento apartment for a while, so they have to stay with America’s boyfriend Shepley (Austin North). And guess who is Shepley’s roommate? Well, they happen to be brothers, so that kinda makes sense.
Abby knows she shouldn’t fall in love with someone like Travis, who is, at least according to her, the walking embodiment of toxic masculinity. So he makes her a bet. He vows to win his next boxing match without giving his opponent the chance to hit him even once. If he loses the bet, he will abstain from sex for one month, or even three. If Travis wins, Abby has to stay at Travis’ apartment for a full month.
If that isn’t a red flag/trigger warning right then and there, I don’t know what is. But the outcome is that Abby feels strangely obligated to keep up her end of the bargain. Travis swears he will respect her privacy, but they still end up sleeping in the same bed. And that’s when the real story begins, with also, of course, Abby’s dark past (including her no-good father) slowly but surely coming into the light.
I don’t wanna spoil too much about the rest of the story. But the psychological make-up of the movie feels weird. Love is blind, as they say, but at the same time there’s a lot of sensible feminist talk from Abby, even though it is eventually revealed that she is just as much of a wild child as Travis. I’m not saying movie characters can’t be contrary, but the way Abby is written is a little bit confusing.
Still, Gardner makes for an appealing romantic lead, who gives it her all, while Sprouse gets ample time to show off his bare chest. And he also gets to hold a cat (yeah!). So you know he is basically a good guy at heart.
A couple of other things. Visually, Beautiful Disaster reminded me of some old Jerry Bruckheimer-movies like Flashdance or even Coyote Ugly: appealing on the outside, but with a hollow core. How very fitting.
However, Kumble is enough of a pro to keep proceedings at least moderately entertaining and this romantic drama is at its best when it drops all pretense and just goes for the comedic possibilities of the whole shebang.
But then a third act happens in Las Vegas that is so over the top that you’re just left wondering what you were watching.
The people may be beautiful, but their (disaster) movie is… just very, very silly.