Alternate Best Actor 2013: Alden Ehrenreich in Beautiful Creatures

Alden Ehrenreich did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Ethan Wate in Beautiful Creatures.

Beautiful Creatures I guess may be the one YA supernatural romance to go with, if you're to watch one of them, as it's not bad, aside from some not so nifty visual effects and questionable cinematography. This one being about a young man, and a witch.

The young man is an essential ingredient to the film's "not badness" through Alden Ehrenreich's performance that thwarts being just a generalized hunk. In fact his whole performance is a rather wry, nearly satirical, take on the hapless hero for such a narrative. The film features Ethan as our guide initially into the Podunk town in the southern U.S. An accent that Ehrenreich would tweak even further towards the absurd as Hobie in the cowboy in The Coens's Hail Caesar!. This is partially towards the absurd, however Eldenreich really finds the right way with it to evoke a down home sort while still maintaining the right earnestness. This is as Ehrenreich narrates the opening of the film partially making fun of setting up the deep south town, and the general idea of the upcoming romance, in his wry delivery, yet not going so far that it feels as though he is sabotaging the film. In fact I'd say Ehrenreich approaches a tone that I would say is similar to the one that Cary Elwes realizes in his performance in The Princess Bride. A comparison that I do not make lightly, but Ehrenreich earns it through his work that refuses to be the bland any man, that Ethan isn't far from as written.

Ethan's role is actually pretty simple within the story in that he only really needs to do one thing, which is to charm and fall in love with a witch Lena (Alice Englert). The complication then comes in her family which includes her cold, yet still good, uncle (Jeremy Irons), but also her evil fellow witches in her sultry cousin Ridley (Emmy Rossum) and mother Sarafine (Emma Thompson hamming it up to the high heavens). Ehrenreich's part though is just to be this normal guy among it all, and quite frankly it would've been very easy to be bland in this role. Ethan probably would've been closer to a block of wood if a more straight forward actor played the part, even the original choice of Jack Reynor, an actor I generally like, I think probably would've fallen flat here. Alden Ehrenreich, despite some questionable pro-Ansel Elgort propaganda you might've heard around Solo, is a rather dynamic performer. This is seen here where he not only captures a definite charm even within the rather thick accent, but also manages to take it further in finding a bit of an atypical approach to the material that likely would've lost in another actor's hands.

Ehrenreich now of course hits his mark in just bringing such an endearing presence, particularly in the romantic scenes. He doesn't overplay them towards melodrama, rather finds the right combination of an earnest affection in his eyes, against the right sense of befuddlement in his delivery as he discovers every new little bit of lore, or family member to wreck havoc on his poor mortal soul. I thoroughly enjoy how Ehrenreich manages to capture the right sort of confused fear, along with still portraying this low key yet utterly believable passion behind the character's persistence. Ehrenreich's slightly slanted approach honestly does wonders for the film as he brings this consistent humorous yet also grounding element for the story no matter how ridiculous it gets in parts. He keeps the right lightness to it all, yet again in that Elwes's sort of way, he manages to make fun of it all, while never ridiculing to the point of destroying any potential dramatics. Even in the scenes of the most basic exposition, that slight smile of his, that so delightfully bemused look of his, just makes it all the more digestible. There isn't a scene in the film where he just sits back, despite Ethan often being sidelined in the story itself, always bringing a nice extra bit of energy tot he proceedings. Although I won't say Ehrenreich made this film amazing by any means, he does his best to not only bring enough of a sincerity to it all, but also with a much needed sense of fun.