Bookworm and the Beast (2021)
(On Cable TV, June 2021) For the record, I don’t necessarily think that Hallmark-channel-type romantic comedies are a sub-form of cinema — but they do operate according to a very specific formula, and they have to be evaluated accordingly. This being said, there are also better and worse examples of the formula, and Bookworm and the Beast definitely falls toward the lower end of the scale. My expectations may have run a bit too high — I’m naturally sympathetic to anything with “bookworm” in the title, and the idea of making a protagonist out of a small-town bibliophilic is a good way to get me to watch the result. But it’s in the execution that the film falls apart and falls apart badly. Much of it goes back to the characters: As is the norm with those films, the heroine is blander than beautiful (an element dictated by the viewership, I suspect — since these films are not being designed for male-gaze consumption, a too-gorgeous heroine is wasted at best, and repellent at worst), the male lead has this not-too-bad-boy scruffy look, as he’s playing this big-city hunk with rough edges. (His family name is also Biest, just to further highlight that nothing will be subtle here.) But there are limits. Here, the heroine is almost instantly forgettable, with literary relevance being an afterthought and handled through safe common references. (A Jane Austen fan? NO WAY!) But the male lead is even worse, playing an ultra-capitalist social media addict. Neither of them are particularly likable, and without likability as a foundation, Bookworm and the Beast can’t hold together. So, when this thoroughly urban romantic interest keeps hanging around the bucolic small town, we don’t believe it. When social media stuff is used as a magic device, we don’t believe it. And when the male lead fails to browbeat the local café into an acquisition, then runs over the female lead’s dad badly enough to send him to the hospital for a week-long coma, then blackmails the female lead into holding back the video she took of the incident, nothing makes sense in this film anymore. No one even remotely behaves like normal people, and the veneer of fantasy that hangs over those films is stripped bare, leaving everything feeling ridiculous. By the time writer-director Brandon Ho eventually makes his way to a bookstore to remind us that there’s some kind of literary hook to this thing, it’s too late — we still dislike the character and the male lead’s predictable defrosting is never believable and there’s so much clumsiness to the literary references (somehow, there’s someone who’s never heard of the premise of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde) that makes everything feel false and manipulated and obnoxious. The cinematography and direction are practically undetectable from a stylistic standpoint — they’re a pure delivery service for the plot. There are ample reviews on this site to show that I’m not necessarily opposed to the Hallmark romantic comedy formula, but Bookworm and the Beast is nowhere near an enjoyable example of the form.