Singer Christopher makes his lead acting debut in Netflix’s A Beautiful Life. (Photo: Netflix)
A feel-good drama about the birth of a pop star, Netflix’s A Beautiful Life is a lot like the genre of music itself — neatly packaged, accessible, and undemanding. Of course, the best pop artists hardly ever play it safe, but A Beautiful Life doesn’t have the spirit of Lorde’s Melodrama or pandemic era Taylor Swift. Instead, it has all the ingenuity of a musical act manufactured by Simon Cowell for shopping malls and the VMAs.
And this is unfortunate, because the Danish-language film actually wants to be taken seriously as a heartwarming rags-to-riches tale. The real-life singer Christopher makes his starring debut as the fisherman Elliott, who just happens to be spotted one evening by Suzanne, the widow of a legendary rockstar; her prickly daughter Lilly, and a record executive who works with them. It sets him off on a journey to pop stardom marked with such little resistance that he may as well have been AirDropped into the future, and you’d be none the wiser.
The first time that Elliott opens his mouth to sing is meant to be as impactful as that iconic scene in Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born, when Lady Gaga gets up on stage and pretty much brings everybody to their knees with her voice. It ranks as one of the greatest movie star-making moments of the last decade. But a similar dramatic moment is staged more intimately in A Beautiful Life, and despite Christopher’s admittedly angelic voice, it can’t help but feel contrived.
But that’s the problem with the entire film. The writing is rarely engaging, and the script seems more concerned with hitting all the familiar beats than dancing to its own tune. Before you know it, Elliott is shipped off to the countryside to scratch together a demo track ordered by Suzanne, he develops feelings for Lilly, and begins churning out bangers with the least amount of effort. All of this goes against the fundamental truth about crafting compelling drama; there’s no conflict — Elliott doesn’t think twice before agreeing to Suzanne’s proposal, he doesn’t experience any difficulty with the creative process, and the love story unfolds way more rapidly than it should.
Left with zero tension and a protagonist who seems too perfect, A Beautiful Life doesn’t waste a single second in sending him down the most cliched journey imaginable. Plotted like a Hindi serial, complete with an unexpected pregnancy and the sudden appearance of an old foe, A Beautiful Life is so desperate to appeal to everybody under the sun that it is left with no identity of its own, and ends up being too timid for fans of romance stories, too clean-cut for music lovers, and too straightforward for people who like a challenging movie.
For instance, even though the film hints at the difficult life Elliott led before being ‘discovered’ by Suzanne, we aren’t told anything about it. When did he realise he was talented? Why did he never pursue music? What were his struggles? We don’t know. And this, primarily, is why it’s so difficult to root for him. Similarly, it’s unclear why Suzanne is so determined to make him a star in the first place. She’s meant to be grieving the death of her husband and trying to mend fences with Lilly, with whom she doesn’t see eye to eye, and maybe that’s how the character was written. But Christine Albeck Børge’s performance makes Suzanne seem like a scheming record studio executive looking to exploit a village bumpkin.
Singing, unlike most other forms of artistic expression, is sort of undeniable. While you can look at a modernist painting and remain unmoved if you aren’t receptive to that sort of art, not a single person who’s heard Adele sing can dismiss the power of her voice. You might not like her music, but you cannot dispute the fact that she’s a great singer. And this is essentially what it’s like to watch A Beautiful Life; Christopher is so obviously talented, but the quality of music in this film is uniformly atrocious. In fact, I was convinced that one upbeat number Elliott knocks out midway through the movie was a parody, but it wasn’t. And when a music film doesn’t understand the difference between a good song and a bad one, we have a problem.
A Beautiful Life
Director – Mehdi Avaz
Cast – Christopher, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Christine Albeck Børge
Rating – 1.5/5
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