Movie leaves audiences bored with unoriginal plot

By Morgan Conklin
Summer Reporter

The movie "Crazy/Beautiful" may have been better suited with a name along the lines of "Stupid/Boring."

The plot was typical of any teen-age movie: Two people who come from the opposite sides of the spectrum meet, fall in love and are discouraged when their family doesn’t accept them.

In this case, Nicole Oakley (Kirsten Dunst) is raised on the wealthy side of Los Angeles; however, she fits everything but the rich kid mold. She is a rebellious teen who is obsessed with drinking, doing drugs and having sex - blaming her behavior on the fact that she is 17 and is "supposed to be out of control."

While she is doing community service for driving while intoxicated, she meets Carlos Nunezi (Jay Hernandez). The two discover they attend the same high school before her supervisor makes Jay - the dedicated, honest football player - leave.

At school, the two cross paths. Jay happens upon Nicole and all of her burnt-out friends while he is walking through the halls. Nicole invites him over to meet her group when a hall monitor becomes suspicious and discovers that there is a container of alcohol. Everyone, including Jay, is forced to serve detention.

Jay becomes resentful of Nicole and blows her off. Following a string of events, the two finally hook up and become serious only to be disliked by the other’s family.

Aside from the movie having a dull plot, the actors’ characters are not strongly developed.

At one point, Nicole’s father is considering sending her to boot camp so that she may become more disciplined. After exchanging some words, the two break down and start crying, apologizing for everything that has gone sour between them. Maybe it would have had a bigger impact on the audience had the two shared the screen for more than a total of five minutes before this landmark moment.

The result of poor character development makes it really hard for the audience to feel sorry for the actors when something unfortunate happens, thus leading to a movie that seems to last eight hours instead of the mere one and a half hours.

In all, "Crazy/Beautiful" could have been just as good, or bad, had it been promoted as a made for TV movie. The only difference with a TV movie is that you wouldn’t have to pay to be tortured by the dull plot, and when the movie became too unbearable to sit through any longer you could change the channel.