Today I finally come to post my review here, about the movie "Beautiful Disaster," the love story of Abby and Travis, two young people discovering life and love while dealing with their own dilemmas without taking themselves too seriously. The movie hits the right balance of romance and comedy, providing us with a good distraction.
The movie starts with her sending a letter to her father, expressing regret for having to leave him behind to pursue her own life. We immediately see how complicated this girl's life is because no young person should have to apologize to their parents for wanting to take charge of their own life. As soon as she arrives at college, she's greeted by a longtime friend who, luckily, is also her roommate. On the same night, she drags her to a party where she wants her to meet her boyfriend.
Upon arriving at the location, she realizes that it's not her scene. She's about to leave when she bumps into Travis. You know, if there's one thing these two have in common, it's chemistry, and that's evident right from the start. The silly look she gives when she accidentally touches him and the fact that she decides to stay and watch the fight even though she's leaving show she's quite interested. But his stopping in the middle of the fight to ask if she's new in town and taking a punch in a fight he was almost winning just to ask that clearly indicates that he wasn't that interested after all.
I already liked the fact that she didn't play coy and admitted right away that she found the guy handsome. She asked her friend about him. Abby is a girl who knows how to handle herself and seems to know what she wants. We see this when we're shown a flashback of her past, where she takes the money she hid in the mattress to pay for college and leaves while the adults in her life argue, revealing the turbulent environment she lived in.
After Travis and Abby have their first encounter, it becomes a cringe-worthy comedy. She stalks him on social media and then acts foolishly by waiting for him to have dinner, even though she had already said she wouldn't. Next, she goes to his cousin's house, who is also her friend's boyfriend, because they are out of water. She ends up snooping on Travis with another girl. To top it off, she acts like the moral police, dictating to an adult man how he should lead his love life.
At this point in the movie, I start to like Travis more than Abby. He is honest and straightforward: "I don't promise anything to anyone." They're adults, and I'm an adult. Everything is consensual. I sleep with whomever I want, no strings attached, and that's that." If more guys were like Travis, there wouldn't be so many women seeing love where it doesn't exist.
Abby is quite contradictory. While she distances herself from Travis and says she doesn't want to sleep with him, the next moment she's in his bed under the pretext of studying. Come on, girl! Her parade of awkwardness is endless. When she opens Travis's drawer and starts taking out all his "toys," seriously? She should have pretended she didn't see. I think they were trying to make Abby seem naive and funny, but all they managed was to make her seem awkward and clueless. I guess that's what some guys like because Abby manages to get a date with Parker, a nice guy from college, even though she's covered in mud. Moreover, she makes Travis a bet with her: three months of sex in exchange for her sleeping in his bed for a month without commitment, just because she's good for him. This girl really has it all.
But we have to admit that she's funny with that attitude. "God forbid, but I wish." After losing the bet, she ends up sharing the bed with Travis for thirty days. These two together are truly hilarious. When Travis takes Abby to meet his family, we discover that Travis has an absolutely lovely family. We also learn a bit about Abby's past and her complicated relationship with her father.
Proving that her father is truly a thorn in her side. When Abby and Travis are almost getting together for the first time, Travis sees a message from him on Abby's computer and completely misunderstands the situation. He storms out, leaving everyone worried, and returns the next morning, saying he adopted a cat. His cousin informs him that the cat belongs to the neighbor. When Abby explains that "Mickey" is her father, Travis, shockingly, admits he was being a jerk and that he was jealous. But even though the movie gained some points with me at this point, it wasn't enough for Abby, who rightfully felt offended by Travis's actions and left.
Next, she's in the library studying, and Parker shows up to take her to a surprise birthday party that Travis arranged to apologize to her. But instead of telling him what she didn't like about his behavior and thanking him for the party, she goes up to him and tells him that Parker is reliable. What's that about, girl? A guy who sleeps with you in the same bed for a whole month and doesn't try anything, doesn't force any situation? In my opinion, that's more than reliable, but anything beyond that is impossible. Travis then understandably gets upset because she implied he's not reliable.
I actually like Abby's character, despite her back-and-forth with Travis. But when she, after getting drunk, tries to use Parker to make Travis jealous, it's childish and regrettable. And all that talk about Travis not being good for her. Come on, girl? Even Parker is more sensible than you and gets out of this mess. One point for him, but for Travis, it's too late, as he's completely smitten and rushes to try to save Abby from an alcohol-induced coma. And of course, they argue again, and the truth is that they both have valid points. So the fight ends with a kiss, followed by vomiting. Seriously, that scene of her puking on his face... Jesus Christ, it's hilarious.
Man, I watched this movie because I thought it would be perfect for one of my ironic posts, but I couldn't do it because these two won me over. The scene of him helping her puke in the bathroom—love and all that. And their first time together was the cutest and most delicate thing ever.
But, as there always has to be a spoiler, a man says that Mike, Abby's deadbeat dad, owes money to his boss and is threatening to break his legs if she doesn't accompany him. The result is that the devoted and concerned daughter, Abby, rushes off without even stopping to think that right after she told her father where she was, this man would come after her for a supposed debt.
Upon arriving, Abby meets old friends and is forced to play to save her father's life, while Travis finds out, thanks to Abby's friend, that she's headed to Las Vegas and goes after her to help. Not that she needs it, because she definitely doesn't. Pretending to be a dumb blonde, she cleans out the guys. Brilliant—that's what Abby is. And she gets the money, but as she's leaving the casino, one of these "friends" from the past appears and, under the pretense that she's under 21, takes it all back.
It's sad when she calls her father, apologizing for losing the money and disappointing him. Seriously, girl? It's your father who should be giving you money for college, to begin with. He's the adult here; he should be solving his own problems, instead of calling a child to solve them for him. Seriously. But right after Travis arrives and starts beating everyone up to get Abby out of that situation, thinking he's helping, she simply turns her back on him without even explaining the situation to the guy—a total lack of consideration.
He's there, saying he loves her and trying to fix the situation, and she's saying he's a problem, driving her crazy. Well, at this point, I had already determined that yes, I have mixed feelings about Abby. Because at one moment, I think she's amazing, and at the next moment, I think she's acting like a jerk. They say that in the book, Travis is kind of toxic. Well, I don't know because I haven't read the book, but I'm definitely planning to. In the movie, Abby is the one who, while not toxic, also doesn't always have the best behavior, unlike Travis, who is mostly consistent about who he is and what he wants.
But aside from Abby's missteps, she and Travis provide us with some cringe-worthy scenes. Like when they go to her hotel room in Las Vegas to have sex and things go awry. Man, that's so real and so different from movies, where everything is sexy and perfect all the time. I loved that break from the norm.
Travis then decides to fight to pay off Abby's father's debt, but meanwhile, she finally finds out that her father had been lying to her all along, and the casino guy who took the money she won, Benny, the man her father supposedly owes money to, and her own father were all plotting against her. You know, if there's someone truly toxic and problematic in this movie, it's Mike. Travis takes a brutal beating and nearly dies, and if it weren't for Abby uncovering the truth, he would have left with the money she won, leaving her to work for Benny. And Travis, well, only God knows what would have happened to him.
But in the end, Abby doesn't disappoint, and after exposing her father's lies, she goes to the fight venue and, thanks to a small fire, manages to rescue Travis and his cousin from the trap and even pockets all the money that, in reality, was hers by right, as she was the one who won it. The movie ends with photos of a wild wedding, and that's that.
Is "Beautiful Disaster" a cinematic masterpiece? Of course not, and I don't think they even intended it to be. And the movie is good precisely because it doesn't take itself too seriously, unlike movies like "After," which make no sense whatsoever but take themselves way too seriously. Here we have an irreverent couple who, despite their ups and downs, avoid drama and treat us to good laughs and a warm feeling in our hearts. So, if you, like me, occasionally enjoy diving into a romantic comedy that doesn't demand too much from you to be understood but serves solely to make you smile, relax, and have fun, then I strongly recommend giving "Beautiful Disaster" a chance.
