''A Beautiful Life'' is a 2008 American drama film directed by

Alejandro Chomski Alejandro Chomski (27 November 1968 – 5 November 2022) was an Argentine film director and screenwriter. As of early 2020, he has directed 16 films with another film in post-production and one announced production. His film '' Hoy y mañana'' w ...

and starring

Jesse Garcia Jesse Garcia (born December 14, 1982) is an American actor. Career Garcia starred in the award-winning film ''Quinceañera'', written and directed by Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer with executive producer Todd Haynes, which won both the ...

and

Angela Sarafyan Angela Sarafyan ( hy, Անժելա Սարաֆյան; June 30, 1983), sometimes credited as Angela Sarafian, is an Armenian-American actress. She has appeared as a guest star in several television series and has acted in the feature films: ''Kablu ...

. It was released by New Films International, adapted from the play ''Jersey City'' by Wendy Hammond. The film received a 0% score on the review aggregator site

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

Plot

A young woman, Maggie (

), is on the run from her abusive father. David (

) is an

illegal immigrant Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...

working as a dishwasher while searching for his mother in Los Angeles. The two meet and fall in love.

Cast

as Maggie *

as David *

Bai Ling Bai Ling (, born October 10, 1966) is a Chinese-American actress known for her work in the films ''The Crow'', ''Nixon'', ''Red Corner'', '' Crank: High Voltage'', ''Dumplings'', ''Wild Wild West'', ''Anna and the King'', ''Southland Tales'', and ...

as Esther *

Meltem Cumbul Meltem Cumbul (born 5 November 1969) is a Turkish actress and TV personality. Biography Meltem Cumbul's career encompasses 16 feature films including Berlinale Golden Bear winner '' Head-On'' movie, 6 TV serials including ''Yılan Hikayesi ...

as Antanas *

Debi Mazar Deborah Anne Mazar Corcos (; born August 13, 1964) is an American actress and television personality, known for playing sharp-tongued women. She began her career with supporting roles in ''Goodfellas'' (1990), ''Little Man Tate'' (1991) and ''Si ...

as Susan *

Rena Owen Renas may refer to: Places *Rena, Badajoz, a municipality in Extremadura, Spain *Rena, Norway, a village in Innlandet county, Norway *Rena, Washington, a community in Clallam County, Washington, United States People *Rena (given name), list of pe ...

as Sam *

Jonathan LaPaglia Jonathan LaPaglia (, ; born 31 August 1969) is an Australian actor and television personality. He has hosted Network 10's revival of ''Australian Survivor'' since 2016. As an actor, LaPaglia is known for his roles as Frank B. Parker in the tel ...

as Vince *

Dana Delany Dana Welles Delany (born March 13, 1956) is an American actress. After appearing in small roles early in her career, Delany received her breakthrough role as Colleen McMurphy on the ABC television drama ''China Beach'' (1988–1991), for which s ...

as Anne *

Enrique Castillo Enrique () is the Spanish variant of the given name Heinrich of Germanic origin. Equivalents in other languages are Henry (English), Enric (Catalan), Enrico (Italian), Henrik (Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian), Heinrich (German), Hendrik, Henk (Du ...

as Don Miguel *

Ronnie Gene Blevins Ronnie Gene Blevins (born June 20, 1977) is an American character actor. He is best known for his role as small-time criminal Willie Russell in the 2013 film ''Joe'', directed by David Gordon Green. Career His TV credits include '' NCIS'', ''Tr ...

as Henry * Walter Perez as Enrico *

Ștefan Bănică Jr. Ștefan Bănică Jr. (; born 18 October 1967) is a Romanian actor, singer, film director, and television presenter. Bănică was born in Bucharest to actor Ștefan Bănică Sr. and journalist Sanda Vlad-Liteanu. In his early career, he starred i ...

as Jack *

Saadet Aksoy Saadet Işıl Aksoy (born 29 August 1983) is a Turkish actress, who received critical acclaim with her portrayal of ''Aska'', a red-haired punk trumpet player in Italian actor-director Sergio Castellitto's film '' Twice Born'', in which she co-s ...

as Denise * Andreea Marin Banica as Britney * Tuba Ünsal as Sadenaz * Kayla Paige as Lucy * Deborah Calla as Virginia *

Gloria Alexandra Gloria Alexandra is an American actress. Gloria Alexandra is known for playing Keifer Sutherland's girlfriend "Maria Lopez" in the action-thriller ''Desert Saints''. She has also been featured in ''Car Craft Magazine'' and several other publicati ...

as Stripper * Royana Black as Cathy * Dan Kelpine as Jim

Release

Although produced in 2008, the film was not released widely in North America until October 2, 2009, and first appeared on DVD on March 1, 2011. This was the second film by New Films International, a long-existing global independent film distribution company based in

Sherman Oaks Sherman Oaks is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California located in the San Fernando Valley, founded in 1927. The neighborhood includes a portion of the Santa Monica Mountains, which gives Sherman Oaks a lower population density than ...

headed by Nesim Hason, whose new American division was led by Tim Swain. The company describes its focus as "festival-driven, high-quality, cast-driven indie films".

Reception

''A Beautiful Life'' received poor reviews from the twelve sources noted by the Rotten Tomatoes website.

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gave the film a score of 13 out of 100, summarizing the reviews of the seven critics it measured as "overwhelming dislike". ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' called it a "laughably clichéd dive into sexual masochism", and ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

'' saw it as a "misery pile up ... about broken souls and crossed paths destined for the trash heap. Scream, smash, slap, cry, repeat."

Slant Slant can refer to: Bias *Bias or other non-objectivity in journalism, politics, academia or other fields Technical * Slant range, in telecommunications, the line-of-sight distance between two points which are not at the same level * Slant d ...

gave it a half-star out of four, saying that "its awfulness

omes The branches of science known informally as omics are various disciplines in biology whose names end in the suffix ''-omics'', such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, phenomics and transcriptomics. Omics aims at the collective ...

in so many forms that it's hard to single out just one appalling example". ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' felt that it provided "unintentional laughs by the barrel", and predicted that the film would be a

box office bomb A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

said that although the film deals with some serious topics, the random nature of characters and controversies made it hard to appreciate them, describing it as "too earnest to be a hoot, and too amateurish to be anything else".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Beautiful Life 2008 films 2008 drama films American drama films Films directed by Alejandro Chomski 2000s English-language films 2000s American films