A Beautiful Life

A Beautiful Life (2008)

  • 0% of critics liked it
    (12 reviews)

  • 34% of users liked it
    (133 ratings)

Two lost souls find meaning in a world of chaos in this independent drama directed by Alejandro Chomski and adapted from the play by Wendy Hammond. Desperate teen Maggie (Angela Sarafayan) is on the run from her abusive father, and young immigrant David (Jesse Garcia) is scouring the streets of L.A.… More

Play Trailer

Unrated,
Directed By
Written By
Deborah Calla, Wendy Hammond
Genres
Drama
In Theaters
Oct 2, 2009 Wide
On DVD
Mar 1, 2011
New Films International

Critic Reviews

  • Mark Jenkins, NPR

    [Lau] successfully balances satire and sentimentality in the first half, but loses his bearings in the sappier second part.

  • Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

    Whatever does work here - mainly a soulful performance by Liu Ye - ultimately gets lost in the excess.

  • Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times

    The film strains credulity by pushing its characters wildly to and fro with a shamelessly sentimental screenplay.

  • Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times

    Set among the mean streets and meaner people of downtown Los Angeles, this laughably clichéd dive into sexual masochism and hardscrabble survival replaces story with outline and characters with place holders.

  • Andrew Barker, Variety

    It's tough to find comedy in a dead-serious, skid-row-set film about homelessness, sexual abuse, incest and the exploitation of immigrants, but the misguided A Beautiful Life manages to provide unintentional laughs by the barrel.

Read all 10 critic reviews

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