Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It is 1993 and England is a changing place. The impending World Cup qualifier with Holland is only going to end badly and immigration is back on the political agenda as refugees arrive from the former Yugoslavia, fleeing the Bosnian War. A group of people move in and around these events and find their lives impacted and ultimately changed by them.With his incite into the story, Dizdar makes a worthy shot at a sort of Short Cuts ensemble piece that weaves several threads together in a way that ironically touches on the Bosnian war and British society. However, for all the credit it deserves for trying, this isn't a very successful attempt for several reasons. The overall sweep of the story works and it is interesting enough to carry it all along but it is in the specific stories where I wasn't feeling it. The major plot devices are always extreme and they prevented the story flowing and being as natural as I wanted it to be. This also limits the ability of the character to impact on me – something not helped by how many characters and threads there were crammed into less than two hours. I wanted it to be better than it was but these problems did knock it down a bit for me.The ensemble cast are nearly all good and no fault can be laid at their feet. At the start the characters are basic but they gradually overcome this and produce solid turns despite the limited character development available to them within the material. To pick one or two out would be difficult but the young football hooligan (forget the actors name) does well, while the sadly passed Coleman is always worth a note.Overall this is an interesting film that aims high but hits a bit lower. The material is engaging and the energy to it almost carries off the excessive and exaggerated plot devices needed to keep it moving. The wide view also limits the impact each character and story has but still just about works. Not brilliant then by any means but a good try from Dizdar and at least it is more interesting and original than the romantic comedies and Lock Stock rip-offs that British cinema was and is churning out.

Very contrasting ideas here mixing the violence of the former Yugoslavia with the shallowness of the British upper middle classes. Throw In smack, Tottenham fans on the loose, Immigration, a depressed journalist, snobbery, an overworked doctor a blind kid plus a whole lot more and the result Is an eclectic film that's got enough about It to succeed.The tone does flip wildly from war zone misery to light domestic matters and that can be a little off-putting, and has been mentioned some of the sound work & a few of the accents are dubious at best. Charlotte Coleman Is very good as the central lead even though she Is peripheral to many of the more memorable moments. The dark comedy Is very funny and unlike so many British films It's not a case of "Who's he?" or "what's she been In?". Most of all It's got spirit & conviction, definitely worth persisting with.

Beautiful People doesn't have a very intelligent plot and the acting (perhaps as a result) is mediocre at best. The whole movie also comes across as being a bit forced.It deals with the conflict between Serbs and Kroats, but the acting and little jokes are just too clumsy and unsophisticated to really be taken seriously... because there *are* quite a few statements that the director seems to want to come across it fails to be amusing or entertaining as well. Having said that, there is one amusing part where an English hooligan ends up in the war. If the director had gone for more of similar absurdities and for less rather blunt moral statements the result would have had more impact IMO.

Beautiful People offers a slice-of-life type look at the messy lives of people in London who are somehow affected by the war in Bosnia. Their stories are kind of interconnected, but in a natural way, not at all contrived. It was refreshing to see how the film combined gritty, realistic stories (the doctor trying to handle his two young sons in the midst of a separation) with some more surreal comedy (the junkie dropped in the middle of war), however, there was one ending that I found to be too unbelievable and not satisfying, and I won't give details of the ending, but it involves the man who was shot in the leg. The movie could have also done without the scene with the thugs reading to the boy -- it was predictably cheesy. Other than that, it a great film, and delivers a really strong message in the end, which explains the title, Beautiful People.