‘Beautiful Friend’ VOD Review (Amazon Prime)
Stars: Adam Jones, Alexandrea Meyer | Written and Directed by Truman Kewley
Some films are destined to be controversial, and I have a strong feeling that writer/director Truman Kewley’s debut feature Beautiful Friend is one of them. It’s something of a modern version of The Collector, the 1965 film, not the 2009 Saw knockoff. That film is about an unstable man played by the late Terrance Stamp who kidnaps a young woman he thinks will fall in love with him. Kewley has updated the premise to reflect the rise of incel culture.
Daniel (Adam Jones; Walk, Night Chills) has a problem with women, they want nothing to do with him. But that can’t be his fault, his shitty attitude toward them can’t be the problem. We know this because we get to hear his thoughts at great length as he stalks women, modifies his van and waves a gun around in the desert. Danny boy is an incel, and a particularly creepy one at that.
Since women won’t give him a chance to prove what a wonderful human being and incredible lover he is, he decides to be more direct about it and kidnaps Madison (Alexandrea Meyer; Love You Forever) and force her to love him, a process that starts with taking her out to the desert and raping her. Then he brings her home and chains her up in a spare room.
While his behaviours are inexcusable, Beautiful Friend does not shy away from exploring the complexity of his character, revealing the fragile humanity beneath the horror. It challenges the audience to grapple with the uncomfortable truth that even those who commit monstrous acts are still human, with their traumas and motivations – Truman Kewley
Despite being tagged as a thriller, Beautiful Friend is a drama, told mostly by way of Daniel’s monologue, with occasional dialogue between its two characters. We hear his thoughts, his rationalizations and excuses, etc. His victim on the other hand is almost totally undeveloped, the film is half over before we even know her name, and we have little insight into her thoughts. At the film’s start, it’s easy enough to tell from the expressions on her face, but as the plot progresses, it can be hard at times to tell if she’s actually responding to his treatment of her or trying to manipulate him in order to get a chance at escape.
As a result, while Kewely refers to Daniel’s actions as inexcusable, his focus on portraying him as a human and understanding his motivations comes close to doing the opposite. At times, it feels as though he’s not only excusing them but justifying them and pitying poor lonely Daniel. It may not be intentional, but it is problematical and made it hard for me to sit through parts of Beautiful Friend, but not for the reasons the filmmakers intended.
But despite giving Daniel all that space to explain himself, by the time the film ends I really didn’t know much of what made him into the person we see. He spouts the standard incel line about women only wanting rich, good-looking men, but he’s not exactly ugly, and it looks like he, or at least his family, has money. There needed to be more backstory as to what set him on this path if we are meant to understand what motivates him.
In the end, Beautiful Friend is a flawed film that seeks to humanize a character who deserves nothing but condemnation and comes painfully close to justifying his actions. Truman Kewley set out to make a disturbing film, and he succeeded, but not for the reasons he intended.
**½ 2.5/5
Beautiful Friend is available on Amazon Prime now, courtesy of Hewes Pictures.
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