If you’re interested, you can catch my review of the Australian film Beautiful in the latest Metro Magazine (Issue 160). Beautiful is a psychological thriller set in a Lynchian mode.

Each time I write a review, I’m constantly reminding myself that I shouldn’t write anything that I wouldn’t say to the person’s face. That’s my number one rule. In the case of Beautiful, that wasn’t too hard because there is are some things to like about the movie. Still, there are some things to dislike (the cliched seventeen-year-old femme fatale for starters). All in all, it’s uneven and unlikely to set the world alight. As a whole, it can’t quite unify its many elements. It’s surrealism is dreamy rather than eerie, which undermines the tension of the thriller. David Lynch is harder to emulate than it appears. Still, it’s nice to see an Australian independent film which tries something different – a semi-surreal mode beyond the usual gritty suburban family dramas.