Kraska v Nesnazich (Beauty in Trouble)

Starring: Anna Geislerova, Roman Luknar, Jana Brejchova, Jiri Schmitzer and Emilia Vasaryova

Written by: Petr Jarchovsky

Directed by: Jan Hrebejk

Distributor: Menemsha Films

Rated: NR

Note: Beauty in Trouble will be screened during the Milwaukee International Film Festival, September 20 – 30 at various venues. Disclosure: Russ Bickerstaff is a member of the festival’s jury.

Deftly drifting through dark moments of social distress, Czech filmmaker Jan Hrebejk’s Beauty In Trouble hasn’t received the kind of international distribution it deserves. It is a thoughtful and delicate feature with only a hint of aesthetic and emotional abrasiveness.

After a massive flood in Prague, a family has fallen on hard times. Jarda (Roman Luknar) has turned the garage into a chop shop in order to make ends meet. Not exactly thrilled with the situation, his wife Marcela (Anna Geslerova) decides to take their son and daughter to live with her mother and stepfather.

It isn’t a very smooth transition for anyone involved. The stepfather (Jiri Schmitzer) is abusive. As Marcela and her children deal with the difficulties of the new living situation, Jarda’s shop has been discovered by the police and he is in jail. Somewhere in the mix, a wealthy man named Evzen (Josef Abrahám) whose car alerted the police to Jarda takes a liking to Marcela, and before long they are off on a date. The two have an interesting chemistry that makes an essentially overdone “pretty underclass woman/upscale rich guy” romance work exceedingly well.

Questions inevitably arise when Marcela’s daughter finds 300 Euros in the book Evzen had given her on the date. When Marcela tracks him down to return the money, he offers her a place to live. Schmitzer has a beauty about her that carries the film through some pretty dark moments, but it really shines with Abrahám. Also of note here are the performances by Michaela Mrikova and Adam Misik, who play Marcella’s children Lucina and Kuba. They provide a youthful intelligence to the dramatic equation that lends precisely the kind of depth the film needs to keep going.

Things slow down considerably when Marcela, Lucina and Kuba move in with Evzen. At this stage, the title situation seems more or less over and the film enters a kind of formless, frictionless series of scenes without any clear overriding conflict. In its last half hour, the film fumbles around, but looks really good doing it, driven as it is by the charm of Abrahám and Geislerova and some stunning visuals exquisitely captured by Hrebejk. Any attempt to infuse additional conflict when Jarda is released from prison seems like an afterthought to an otherwise balanced plotline. While there are a few choice moments of emotionally gripping cinema near the end of the film, Hrebejk would’ve been better served with something slightly shorter. VS