An eccentric old gardener and an OCD girl team up to create an English garden
I believe everyone has a garden in their heart, where birds sing and flowers bloom, the sun shines brightly, and you can gather with a few good friends to chat and have fun, free of worries and at ease. That is the place many people dream of, a faraway place many people can never reach. In "This Beautiful Fantastic," there is just such a garden.
The cast of "This Beautiful Fantastic" is very strong. The female lead is Jessica Brown Findlay, who has appeared in "Harlots," "Downton Abbey" and other films and TV shows. The male actors are Andrew Scott, who appeared in "Sherlock," Jeremy Irvine, who appeared in "War Horse," and the veteran actor Tom Wilkinson. Tom Wilkinson has appeared in "Kong: Skull Island," "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and others.
Bella is a strange girl. From childhood she behaved differently from other children. She has an unusual obsession with order, otherwise known as OCD, and she is also very afraid of plants in nature.
As a grown-up, Bella works in a library and dreams of becoming a writer. The grown-up Bella is still very strange: her home is arranged in perfect order and kept spotless, yet her back garden is a messy jumble, growing wild.
Alfie is Bella's neighbor and also a strange person, but this old man is very skilled at gardening. He has made his own back garden dreamy and beautiful, and for that reason Bella's awful back garden greatly displeases Alfie, and by extension he does not think much of Bella either.
Vernon is the cook at Alfie's house. His cooking is superb, but he cannot stand Alfie's harsh demands and quits. It happens that Bella is also unhappy with Alfie, and in a fit of pique, right in front of Alfie, Bella hires Vernon.
Without the delicious dishes Vernon makes, Alfie finally cannot bear it anymore, and he demands that Bella give Vernon back to him. Because Bella has not tended her own back garden, her landlord tells her she must get it in order within 1 month or get out. Bella needs someone to help her tend the garden, and Alfie is the best candidate.
In the end, Bella, Alfie and Vernon reach an agreement: Vernon cooks for Alfie, three meals a day, but does the cooking at Bella's house; and Alfie must help Bella get the garden in order.
As the days pass one by one, the garden gradually changes, and the feelings between Bella, Alfie and Vernon begin to grow friendlier toward one another. Bella also meets at the library a mechanical-obsessed science-and-engineering guy, and the feelings between the two heat up rapidly.
In the end, with the help of Alfie and Vernon, Bella's cozy little garden is born, and the misunderstanding with the engineering guy is cleared up. Everything is so beautiful, and just as beauty arrives it leaves: Alfie passes away, and the film ends with a faint sadness.
The plot of "This Beautiful Fantastic" is mediocre, with echoes of "Amélie," but it is hard to surpass it. Still, the film shows us two utterly different English gardens: one full of blooming flowers and dazzling colors, dreamy and romantic; the other cozy and small, simple and comfortable. Each has its own English character, and just admiring them is enough.