crazy/beautiful [HD]

Kirsten Dunst shines in an engaging character study
I hesitated to see this film because having seen my share of Kristen Dunst movies, I wasn't sure I was ready for another teen sugar attack. However, this film turned out to be a pleasant departure from the perky candy coated parts Dunst has played in the past. In fact, this might be a watershed role for her, marking her transition from teen roles to adult roles.

Dunst plays Nicole Oakley, a troubled teenager from a privileged family who falls in love with Carlos (Jay Hernandez), a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. The story is nothing new, but the presentation is remarkably good, with far greater maturity than one would expect from a high school flick.

This film is exceptional considering its limited budget and the fact that most of the major players have very little experience at this level. For writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, this is their first feature film screenplay. For director John Stockwell, it is only his second feature film. Likewise for Jay Hernandez and...

Crazy/Beautiful
Crazy/Beautiful is a groundbreaking emotional story about two young lovers, Carlos(Jay Hernandez) and Nicole(Kirsten Dunst), on the opposite sides of the spectrum. Carlos is a straight-A-student whose priorities are to graduate and gain acceptance into the naval academy. Nicole is a disgruntled 17-year-old whose priorities include finding distractions to cope with the loss of her mother. She has no college ambition, she likes to get lost in wide variety of drugs and sexual activities and she swears she will never trust anyone again after her mother's suicide. When Carlos meets Nicole for the first time, he finds her "scary" because she is extremely unpredictable with her wild behavior. Nicole falls strangely in love with Carlos and believes that they should always be together. When Carlos finds himself in the position in which he must choose between Nicole and his school work, he chooses her. The two fall madly in love and a number of situations fall into play because...

Upside down cliches
I live with an LA High School teacher; we are both in our fifties yet we both enjoy teen oriented movies, at least to some degree. However, we are also highly sensitive to the distance from reality in most of these movies, and this one kept us awake and interested. Crazy/Beautiful may be another fairly tale reworking of the star-crossed lovers theme, but it also presents its characters with a gritty realism. These kids in this movie are a lot like real kids that we know and see everyday.

Kirsten Dunst is still portraying a teenager, but proves she can handle adult complexity. Jay Hernandez is wonderfully unaffected. The story is in many respects by the numbers, but it turns most of the movie cliches upside down - the rich kids father approves of the poor kid - it's his own daughter he has trouble with. The Latino kid is appealing to the white girls, but he isn't a white boy in a Latino skin, he is comfortable in his identity. I don't want to say too much more because I...

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